


Antagonism & Synergy

by swooning



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: BDSM, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 22:53:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3706749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swooning/pseuds/swooning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is Helen's antagonist in every sense of the word. With Will, she might achieve something like synergy.</p><p>Starts Helen/John, veers Helen/Will. Fairly kinky. Includes some Helen/John dubcon. It will never be more finished than it currently is, so don't look for a plot, just enjoy the smut :-)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Helen's peculiar background was such that she knew many definitions of the word "antagonist". And she recognized that for her, John Druitt met all of them.

At least at the metaphorical level. He opposed her, so much of the time, as a baseline. Operated against her interests, even if it also meant operating against his own. But more than that, just as a chemical antagonist would do, he occupied a space that might otherwise have been filled by something beneficial. And he filled it with things that were not. Feelings, actions, that did both of them more harm than good. He made each of them less than they might otherwise have been. 

He had been in Helen's life so long she could no longer remember the feeling of his absence. Physically, he might disappear for decades. But even the possibility of his return was enough to serve as a placeholder. She knew, always, that he would be back to wreak his havoc in her world again, and because of this he was always somewhere in her mind. Her home existed under a shield designed specifically to keep him out, so that everything she did was in some sense accomplished with reference to John. And she had always known that the EM shield would ultimately fail in its purpose. She was proven correct about that. When he wanted to return to her, he did, because that was the fundamentally ruthless nature of John Druitt. 

Helen knew the things she owed to John. These things had all come at a steeper price than she ever imagined, but she still recognized their importance. She knew that the five would not have been 'The Five' without him; they would have been some other mix of five people, but that other five might never have achieved the same fantastic heights of experimentation. Or, because one never knew all the variables, they might still have taken the source blood but the results might have been utterly different for each of them. She suspected she owed her life - or at least the length of it - to John, as well as to the other three. 

Without John, she might also have become the spinster she had frankly expected to be once she chose her unheard-of path in life and pursued the practice of medicine. How could she have married? Whom could she have married? She wouldn't have given up her work for it, and she knew - or assumed - she would have had to. In that time, in that place, the odds had been so heavily against such a thing that Helen had resigned herself to eternal maidenhood. She would have taken a lover, but back then she had no idea how to go about it. Until John mooted the point, by dismissing assumptions and forging ahead with what he intended. He admired her and meant to have her, and so he did. Neatly sidestepping the machinations of Nikola and James's earnest patience, he thought quickly and then stopped thinking in order to act; while they pondered how best to woo, John simply claimed her as though he were entitled. His fundamental nature. 

And it had been sweet, so sweet, at first. He was never a tender man, but his admiration was nearly overwhelming. So much intensity, so much focus, and all that energy directed solely at Helen. She fell so hard she feared for her sanity. She was smarter than John, though just a little, but in this she was a novice and they both knew it. And John took every advantage, delighting in surprising her with her body's abilities and responses, until she was mindless and receptive and existed purely to await the next sensation he might grant her. 

So sweet, at first. He could have been cruel, even then, because she was so utterly at his mercy when he played her that way; but he wasn't cruel, because he loved her passionately and he wasn't yet the John he would become. Helen will never forget his long, long fingers gripping her chin, never allowing her to look away the first time he touched her in any new, forbidden place. Reading her reactions as he slid his thumb over her nipple, cataloguing each response as his fingers learned the topography of her cunt. 

She had thought she knew herself. She was bold, and had explored her own body with great interest and confidence for many years. But with a single touch, John could prove her ignorance by teaching her herself. Over and over he did so, binding her to him, because Helen craved new knowledge of any sort and this was a knowledge only John could teach. Or so it seemed at the time, and so often one's earliest lessons in a thing are the ones that matter most.

"Tell me where you want to be kissed," he would say, and she would review her expansive knowledge of anatomy. Trying to get his mouth closest to where she needed it without saying the words she knew he wanted to hear, which were the ones she could not help but be embarrassed to say. She was still a product of her time in some respects, despite her best efforts to blaze her own trail in the world.

"Labia minora," she could say without a blush, for some reason. He would lick, and tease, and he would not go near her clitoris unless she named it which he knew she did not like to do. Eventually she would give in, and they both also knew that; once he had brought her to a climax with his mouth the first time, once she knew what it could feel like, she was unable to resist. 

"Amor Veneris?" she attempted once, and he laughed out loud. Hot puffs of breath gainst the tense, swollen bit of flesh in question, making her writhe in an agony of want.

"That is not an acceptable variation, Helen." He laughed again at her frustrated moan, and slicked his tongue inside her to prod at the delicate virginal membrane he had yet to breach. He was still in his shirtsleeves and trousers but Helen was gloriously nude, spread out before him on his hearth rug like a depraved angel. She had taken to dressing as a boy to avoid arousing suspicion when she came to his rooms, and the consequent reduction in layers of clothing had sped their progression to this point. 

Helen moaned again in protest when he pulled away and sat up, tugging at her hands to bring her up with him. She tried to resist, making him grin when she finally said the hated word - "Clitoris! John, please?" - in an attempt to lure him back down. 

"Too late, my love. Say it more quickly next time and I might be willing to oblige." He brought her hands to his chest, flattening his over them for a moment. "It's your turn to undress me now."

She knew better than to try to look away while she took in his meaning. They both knew what this step would lead to, and though it hadn't been stated explicitly, they had both been aware that it would happen that night. After a moment or two, her fingers attacked his remaining garments with all the nimble dexterity of a surgeon, and she had his shirt off and his trousers unfastened with a speed that took them both off guard. There was another minute of profound silence, broken only by the snap of the fire, when Helen accidentally brushed his erection with her knuckles through the fabric of his trousers. She paused with rare uncertainty and John caught her wrist and held her fingers against him before she could pull her hand away. Then, seeming to change his mind, he stood and shucked the trousers quickly, kicking them out of his way with a little more force than necessary. The only sign that he was not as calm as he appeared. 

He would have sat down with her again, but she had already moved to her knees in front of him, stopping him with a delicate press of her fingers against the corded muscles of his upper thighs. Then she glanced up at him, clearly seeking approval, and he obligingly laced his fingers over his head and let her do what she would. 

Too fascinated to be embarrassed, Helen brought her hands to his penis, taking in color and texture, dimension and temperature. The shaft, with foreskin completely drawn back, ruddy with arousal and hot under her slightly trembling fingers. It was hottest and darkest just below the glans, almost purple with perfusion. And interesting, when she pressed the frenulum a tiny bit harder, John made a noise in the back of his throat that she had never heard before. Highly reactive. His smell was musky with a trace of soap, earthy and healthy and not at all unpleasant. A strong, slightly elevated pulse at the base of the member. The testicles, cooler than the skin of his thighs, bunching noticeably when she touched them. John sighed at that, and Helen saw the muscles of his lower abdomen tighten. That movement began a short digression as she explored the elegant structure of his lower torso and hips - he was so lean, she could see each muscle and feel a solid hint of the bones beneath, and he was such a perfect specimen. Far better than a textbook or a cadaver. She thought she might have to completely rethink the way she studied anatomy henceforth.

Then her wandering fingers snagged in the thicket of dark brown curls over his pelvis, and her attention returned to the more pressing matter. A new development, she saw. A small bead of milky fluid weeping from the meatus, and she dabbed her finger into it and sniffed the viscous stuff with clinical curiosity. When she put her tongue out to lick a small sample of it from her fingertip, then cocked her head to one side as she tried to decide what it tasted like, John cleared his throat pointedly. 

And Helen realized she was naked, kneeling in front of John's erect penis - still encircling it with one hand, in fact - while she licked a bit of his spend from her finger. She blushed redder than the flushed skin in front of her and snatched her hands back like a child caught trying to steal a sweet. And then met John's eyes and giggled, because he looked so wholly amused at her. 

"Intellectual curiosity satisfied for the moment?"

"Yes, thank you," she replied politely, and giggled again. 

She took the hand he offered and stood up into his arms. She always forgot how tall he was, because she was fairly tall herself for a woman and it was so unusual to have to look that far up to anyone. The closer she was to him the more noticeable it was, and now with her skin pressed to his - bliss, unexpected bliss, that simple and total contact - she was closer than ever before. Nearly as close as possible, although she expected they would be horizontal when that finally happened. Then he wove his hands through her hair and kissed her and blank, her mind was a blank and then it was filled with nothing but John. 

He took her to bed. She'd never been in his bedroom before, and thought it strange that she hadn't. It would not have been appropriate, of course, but no more was it appropriate to be there now, so why had it mattered? It hadn't. And it didn't matter now. Only John mattered, stretching out to cover her body with his, mouth nuzzling her neck in the spots he knew were sensitive, knees nudging her legs apart so he could reach between them more easily. He teased her until she was back where she had been so recently, whimpering and needy and arching shamelessly into his touch. Shivering closer and closer to a peak, which he skillfully kept her from reaching. 

When he took her chin in his fingers, she knew it was time, and she stilled like a frightened animal. A flash of something, some feral energy, lit John's eyes at her momentary panic. More swiftly than she expected, he brought his swollen shaft to her opening and thrust forward, making Helen gasp in shock. At the suddenness, not the pain. He had been thorough in his preparations, and she had not had much of a barrier in the first place. There was a sting, and then fullness, and then she cried out as John pushed deeper and deeper until his considerable length was buried inside her. 

"Helen," he whispered, and released her chin so he could run his hand along the side of her cheek. "Mine, you're mine..."

She watched his face, wondering at the myriad emotions washing over it. He had stopped moving and she tried to relax, letting her tissues and muscles grow accustomed to this new thing, to John's length and girth inside her body. But she couldn't stop trembling. It was too new, and she was too anxious, and she had never dealt well with things she didn't know how to do yet. 

"Breathe, my love," John said, looking amused again, but also enchanted. Bracing himself over her on his elbows with his fingers tangled in her hair, he stroked at the golden curls and looked down at her as though she delighted him. Helen didn't want to delight him accidentally, she wanted to be able to do it on purpose. 

She took a deep breath and released it, curling her fingers into the pronounced muscles under his shoulder blades. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do," she confessed, and was momentarily infuriated when John laughed. 

"It isn't an examination," he murmured, bending to kiss her on her frowning lips. "There are no wrong answers. Do whatever you like." He pulled nearly all the way out and then slid back in again, grinning like a demon. "I'm confident in your ability to determine a suitable strategy." 

Out and then in again, so slowly, and he kissed her again and again until she forgot herself and began to move in time with him. And then, only then, did he heighten his pace and increase the depths of his thrusts. Once she was moaning and returning his kisses with giddy fervency, he brought his hand between them and began stroking her clitoris in time with his thrusts. Helen broke her mouth free, looked at him in utter astonishment, and then climaxed around him so fiercely she almost lost consciousness. 

John seemed to lose control then, too, lose himself in her frantic cries and the rhythmic squeeze of her already glove-tight cunt. He stopped holding back and slammed into her, and she sobbed his name and clenched around him even more tightly as he groaned and worked himself inside her. When he finally burst, filling her with a rush of hot seed, Helen's eyes fluttered open and she gripped his chin to watch him as he had watched her earlier.

She waited patiently as his last reflexive movements slowed to a stop and his breathing returned to something more regulated and even than that of a winded cart horse. And then she smiled at him, a smile full of newfound knowledge and renewed intellectual curiosity. 

"How soon can we do it again?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: dubcon, violence.

It was the fourth, or perhaps the fifth time, that things began to change.

It was all still new enough to Helen that she only recognized the differences after the fact. Long after the fact. At the time, it was just more novelty. More and different sensations. More variables in the ongoing science experiment she and John were conducting with one another, investigating cause and effect, action and reaction, with respect to their separate and combined bodies. 

He had quarreled with James that night, she recalled, though she couldn't remember what they fought about. John had been irritable in general for a week or so. More so than usual, and he was not an easy man at the best of times. Since the source blood, and his discovery of his fantastic new ability, he had grown even moodier. Darker. Helen couldn't pretend that it didn't excite her just a little, to see him as dangerous.

More than a little, in truth. He pulled her into an alley that night as he walked her home, pushed her roughly against the wall and kissed her without preamble. She responded breathlessly, not protesting even when his hand tugged her skirt up, flipping layers of petticoats out of his way and groping through the open seam in her drawers so he could work his fingers inside her. She was already wet, ready for him, and they both groaned when he encountered that slickness. 

She would have let him take her there, she wanted him so badly. Up against the cold bricks in the dark, like a cheap whore. More than just let him do it, she would have welcomed it. It so defied convention, and the frantic urgency of it struck some dark chord in her. 

One hand at her cunt with three fingers shoved hard inside her, the other resting at the base of her throat, John stopped himself. The effort it cost him was obvious to Helen, even in her state of distraction. 

"No," he hissed, as though he were angry with her. "Not here. Not with you." Angling his hand, he pressed deeper into her, his voice softening. "My sweet Helen. You're mine, my love. Mine, and I'm never going to let you forget it."

Then his hand left her body and he was yanking her down the street again, dress all awry. Not toward her home but his. He scanned the street and pulled her hastily inside the entrance by the kitchen, then up the backstairs before anybody could spy them. Once he had closed the door to his own suite, locking them in safely, he pushed her up against the heavy wood and shoved her dress aside as he had in the alley. Unbuttoning his trousers and union suit at lightning speed, he hitched one of her legs up to his hip and took her hard and fast. Judging by his mood, Helen thought John would bring himself to an end with no regard for anything else. Instead he dragged her with him almost by force. He molested her breasts roughly enough through her dress to pull a hesitant cry of protest from her. At the whimpered request to stop, he shook his head, never altering the furious pace of his hips as he pumped in and out. 

"Touch yourself."

"What?"

He grabbed her hand and shoved it down impatiently, nostrils flaring.

"Pleasure yourself. I want to watch you do it." And he resumed his overzealous attentions at her bosom, while she struggled with her remaining shreds of modesty. "Now, Helen. Do it now!"

It was a command, the first one really. Had she known obeying it would set the precedent for the next century and more, she might have thought twice. But she wasn't thinking. She was stroking her hand down over her pubis, brushing dark blonde curls aside to reach her throbbing clitoris with one shy finger. 

"Oh, it's far too late to be bashful now, my love," he encouraged her with a bitter humor she had never heard from him before. "Go to it with a will."

Shifting her skirts higher between them, he drove even harder into her until the leg she still had on the ground began to shake. She stroked herself more firmly, speeding up as the pleasure started to build, and just as she started to pant and grind in time with John, he forced his hand down her bodice and twisted his thumb and forefinger sharply around her nipple. 

Helen cried out as the bite of pain brought a corresponding flash of heat beneath her busy fingers. Her corset stays bit into her, the extra pressure from John's intrusive hand making it difficult to breathe, and then he pinched harder still and her hips bucked convulsively against his. He kept the pressure there, fucking her even faster.

The growling urgency in his usually controlled voice was an indicator of his own extreme need. "Make yourself come, Helen. Make that sweet cunny of yours even tighter for me. Now!"

The precedent was already set. She came hard at his order, milking his cock through her own shuddering, brilliant orgasm and then John's explosive release. And then Helen came again, arching in silent ecstasy because there was no breath left in her. John kept thrusting until she was spent and limp. 

He slipped out of her when he released her leg, and had Helen's eyes been open at that moment she would have seen a look of confusion and something like horror on John's face. Not at her, but at himself. When she did open them, it was because he had left her there at the door. She stood and watched him walk shakily to the faded wing chair in front of the cold fireplace. He sat heavily and rested his head in his hands. He hadn't bothered to fasten his trousers, and his depleted penis sat in his lap like a silent accusation. 

Helen pulled the bodice of her dress as straight as she could, and smoothed her petticoats and skirt down. Then she removed her wool cape and unpinned her hat, and carefully placed both on one hook of John's coat rack. 

He had tucked himself back in by the time she knelt in front of him and rested her head on her arms in his lap, pushing one of his elbows firmly aside to do so. He circled her shoulders with that arm and laid his head on hers, kissing her hair, taking and giving comfort. She took his gesture as an apology, thinking the two of them were so attuned to one another that words were not necessary. Years later it would occur to her that he never had apologized. Not that first time, when it wasn't really necessary but would have been polite, and not any time after that when it would have meant everything to her. She came to think she might have let things go on so long in part because she was waiting for an apology that never came. 

But that would be unforeseeable years in the future. On the night it all began, she offered as much solace as she received. He seemed almost frightened, far more distressed than she was by the incident - she had actually enjoyed it quite a bit - and she could feel him trembling long after she had stopped. Not long after that, John rose and built a fire, and brought the feather tick and the quilt from his bed to the floor in front of it. He peeled off Helen's clothes with gentle reverence in the firelight. He kissed each inch of her flesh as though he were worshipping it, and later he made love to her with a tenderness she had never seen from him before...and never would again. 

* * * * *

 

  
The die was cast. Helen deduced too late that there was no accident in John's new behaviors. He never showed any consternation again, whether he felt it or not. And she realized afterward he was training her, teaching her body first to accept pain as a condition of pleasure, then to feel it as a harbinger of pleasure, and finally to take pleasure from the pain itself. His hand at first, sharp and swift against her haunches or breasts. Then a wooden hairbrush, or a leather strop. Then a birch switch, or a bundle of them. And she grew cynical, losing any illusion that her pleasure was his ultimate goal; he sought it only because it increased his own. Because he was never so aroused as when Helen was crying even as she begged for climax. Which she did, every time. His control improved, to Helen's detriment. He inflicted pain while he brought her to crisis over and over, until she stopped weeping for release and pleaded instead for him to stop, and only then would he take her cunt or mouth or arse, and bring things to a finish. 

After he had spent himself inside her body, he would grow calm and something like kind, soothing her with words and caresses. A ritual evolved. He would hold her until her tears had stopped, and he would praise her for her suffering, for pleasing him so profoundly. He would heat a kettle over the fire and then bring a bowl of hot water to the bedside, where he would bathe her with meticulous care as she slowly drifted toward sleep. Endearments would fall from his lips like rain, words of love for which she was absurdly grateful. When she was clean and dry he would pull the bedclothes over them and cradle her in his arms until sleep took them both. 

She was his whore before long. Willing to do anything, endure anything, for the reward of ecstasy he promised her. She could not admit it, but the pain made it even keener, turning the sweetness of their pleasure into a powerful narcotic. When he restrained her, which was often, she came even harder, unable to resist her own responses. Because, despite what she tried to tell herself, she knew that she craved the things John did to her. She had responded to them from the start, and now she yearned for them even as that yearning appalled her. He would not have been able to train her if she hadn't let herself be trained. If she hadn't had a propensity for it. Her own deviance shocked her more than John's, and she came to wonder if she had ever known herself at all.

Yet during her days she proceeded as though nothing had changed. She studied and worked and debated ideas with all four of her friends. She knew that James suspected something was amiss, but she also knew that he would probably never ask. Because he knew that whatever it was, it was something between Helen and John. 

Helen, out of all of them, felt the most horror when John's murderous secret was revealed. Not because she had loved him best, or because she feared for her own life. Until he actually tried, she didn't think John would kill her unless she somehow provoked him to do it. Her horror was not even born of feeling for the poor, doomed stales he had slashed to death to satisfy the lust he couldn't slake with her. No, she was horrified because she had been so distracted by her own twisted desires that she had missed the descent of her lover into homicidal madness. She had been so susceptible to his demands that she failed to see he was torturing her as an outlet for his sick rage. The best part of John had been dying inside, and she hadn't even seen it. All she had cared about was pleasure, even as she accused him in her mind of caring only for his own. 

Though if she hadn't been such a willing accomplice to that deviance, she might well be dead already, she thought. Dead and cold in an alley, her bodice and skirts pulled askance. She wondered if he had carried his now-famous weapons with him that night. He had already killed the first one, by then. If he had taken Helen, she would have been the second. Instead he took only a part of her life, and did it so gradually she never noticed until it was too late. The women he butchered - the ones they knew about, at least - were unprepossessing, short and dark, in their middle years. Creatures of mere convenience. Except for the last one, who was young and tall, fair of face and hair. And even then it had taken Watson to recognize the truth about John. 

"I always...cared so much for you, Helen," James would whisper in her ear weeks later, as he moved inside her body with more assurance than she had expected, but still so much less than she needed. 

She turned her face to his and kissed him sweetly, smiling at his startled moan when she raised her legs and wrapped them around his hips. "I know, James. You've always been such a dear friend to me."

Making sure he knew that she could give him comfort, but never love. Because John still had that. And she wouldn't lead James on. He really was too dear a friend for that. 

"You look like an angel," he said, bringing a handful of wild golden curls to his enraptured face. 

 _My wicked angel_ , John had called her sometimes. Before he turned into something else. When it had been this sweet and new between them.

Helen lifted her hands to James's cheeks and made herself study his face until she saw only him above her. He deserved no less. Still, she wondered if Nikola would not have been the smarter choice for this after all. Less likely to fall in love, far more likely to drop her over an ottoman, throw her skirt over her head and ravish her until she forgot everything for a few precious seconds. She looked at James, his gentle eyes and the beard that he thought hid his feelings. She wondered what he would say if she asked him to take her in an alley, up against the wall. Hard and fast, ripping an orgasm from her body whether she was willing or not. 

She smiled at James and closed her eyes, and pictured the ottoman and Nikola so that she would not be picturing John and the alley. James was absurdly pleased with himself when she climaxed around him, she could tell. It was rather sweet, really.

* * * * *

 

  
When John returned the first time, he once again refrained from killing her. He had enough control over his darkness to remember that he had sought her out because he thought she might be able to help him. 

He couldn't control the lust that still gripped him, however. The second night back he followed her to bed, pinned her struggling body down, and reacquainted himself with it at length until she stopped struggling. Then he reacquainted Helen with the heady rush of pain and pleasure that she had never stopped needing. He held her at the precipice for so long she was in agony, only giving her release when he had turned the smooth, white skin of her back into a fiery trellis of welts, then tossed the switch to one side and forced his way into her without warning. She was wet, but it had been too long and the angle was wrong. It hurt, and she screamed when she climaxed because John was gripping the back of her neck and the sweat on his hand made the fresh welt there burn like a knife cut. 

Helen could tell from his sounds and the increasing randomness of his strokes that John was ready to come himself. Just before he did, he pulled out of her, and a few seconds later she felt a series of wet slaps and a ferocious sting as his semen spattered her much-abused back and bum. He spread it with his hands, toying with the sticky stuff until it started to dry. 

"I told you once that you were mine," he said quietly, with the almost eerie calm that took him at such moments, "and that I would never let you forget it, Helen. Do you remember that?"

She nodded, unable to stop herself from wincing as the movement disturbed the drying spend, and the deep mark on her neck started hurting all over again. 

"If I thought I could do it and still have your cooperation, I would kill James for trying to take what's mine. I should have done it when he found me out. And if I thought I could live without your help - without you - I would kill you, too, Helen." He sounded only vaguely disturbed by the thought, as though his pragmatic need to keep his onetime friends alive were a vexing inconvenience. "You should never forget that, either. I love you more now than ever before. But I miss you terribly, and some part of me despises you for that."

"We're even, then," she admitted, without admitting to anything more. 

He untied her slowly, leaving her to rub at the marks on her wrists and ankles as he sought out a glass of wine. No hot bath now, no sweet terms of love. He shared the wine with her, sitting on the edge of her rumpled bed, and before he left he put an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head, resting his chin there for a long time. 

He came to her every night after that. Sometimes just to talk; he was full of anger and guile and confusion. More often to give and take the brutal pleasure they both seemed to need. Twice, to make love to her in something like the manner of their first days together. She cried harder after he left on those nights than at any other time. She never asked where he went when he left her. But he was always back the next day, watching, demanding to know if she had made progress. Helping her, when she needed it. He was an able assistant in the lab. His sharp wits and arid humor reminded her why she had fallen in love with him. And after treatments that seemed to help him control the monstrous urges he struggled against, she let herself dare to believe he might be cured at last. They might share a life, at last. A long life, maybe, if he received an infusion of her blood. 

Just as he had the last time, he nearly killed her before he took his leave of her. And just as she had the last time, she cursed her own lovesick blindness for weeks before finally turning to a friend to help her forget. Nikola, this time. She had learned something, after all, it seemed.

Fortunately, Tesla was smart enough to be discreet. James never found out, and Helen was glad. He really was too dear a friend, and he didn't deserve that. She had fewer concerns about any tender feelings Nikola might harbor - if indeed he was capable of such feelings toward another person at all, which she strongly doubted. He was everything she hoped he would be. 

But when she closed her eyes on Nikola and the ottoman - or the chair, the sofa, the bed, the floor, once even the top box at the theatre during a particularly bad opera - she always pictured John and the alley. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: dubcon, spankings, rough sex, anal. But also an epiphany for Helen.

It had been a hundred years or more since the last time, when next John Druitt darkened her bedroom door. She had taken many a lover during the interval. Sometimes sweet, gentle men like Watson, who treated her like a porcelain goddess and made her feel cherished and unique. More often men like Tesla, men who gave as good as they got, exhibited a great deal of wild enthusiasm, and said goodbye just as cheerfully or cynically as they had hello. She even let one of those cane her, once. It wasn't the same. He somehow seemed to lack the courage of his convictions.   
  
Helen realized she must be disturbed indeed if her measure of a lover's intensity while beating her was whether he seemed likely to go forth and find a prostitute to murder after leaving her bed. But we are only the sum of our experiences, and some experiences are more meaningful than others. The few times she had been with men who seemed overtly interested in control, especially control tinged with cruelty, she had extricated herself as quickly as possible. It felt oddly like cheating.  
  
It wasn't that she was frightened of Druitt. Or not just that. She had been frightened, of course. He had tried to kill her more than once, and she had left herself wide open for it because he had a unique ability to slip past her defenses. He had told her he was inclined to kill her, and she believed him as she believed little else in her life. She believed it just as she believed he still loved her. Her mind was just large enough to accommodate those two concepts simultaneously with only minimal dissonance.   
  
No, what frightened Helen Magnus wasn't the monster who loved her, whom she loved even now. Whose child she had chosen to bear. It was herself, and the person she sometimes became when she was alone with John. A person she hardly recognized, a person she swore she did not want to be. Until he returned, and so did this other Helen who held still for the lash, who let Druitt tell her what to feel and when to feel it. Who would lick his boots to earn the privilege of sucking his long, lean cock. She had died the little death for John so many times, what was the risk of one more death at his hands? One more kind of death? And really, wasn't that part of the attraction? Only a woman who expects to live forever can afford to gamble for stakes that high. If she were to die one last time, it would somehow be fitting if John were the agent. He had been killing her for years. What bothered her so deeply was that she just kept letting him do it.  
  
She knew she was an addict, just as much as any opium eater is an addict. She knew if she indulged in that heady drug, sought out other ways to experience that intoxication in John's absence, she could lose herself entirely in that search. Better to tell herself John was a necessary component of that high. Better to walk away from the danger when she could.   
  
But when danger walked back through her door, she could only resist for so long. This time he tried to kill people first, confusing the usual order of things. She finally decided it was time to turn the tables, and made a serious attempt to kill him for once. It felt dreadful, and anyway it didn't take. But she didn't entirely rule out trying it again some other time.   
  
Nikola had more apparent success restoring John to his senses, and for a time Helen waited, knowing he would come back to her. When he did, he seemed changed indeed. Less cruel but more brutal. He no longer bothered tying her up, beating her or forcing her into orgasm after agonizing orgasm. Now he simply pushed her up to the nearest available surface, moved aside whatever was in the way, and entered her roughly, taking her as though he were devouring her from the inside out. Not unlike that first time, up against his door. There was an air of desperation, of striving for something they would never achieve. Helen found herself as hungry for that effort as John seemed to be, though she always felt very lonely afterward and sometimes even during the act itself. It didn't happen often. Days or weeks might go by. But he would always be there eventually, determined to consume her, to be consumed. She took to sleeping nude after he tore a comfortable nightgown and the top to her favorite pair of silk pajamas.   
  
The last time - she hadn't known it would be the last time - she remembered as particularly harsh, though not quite in the old way. She had been brushing her hair, bent over at the waist, and she heard the strangeness in the air that heralded John's arrival only seconds before she felt his fingers knotting themselves into the fine hairs at the nape of her neck. He pulled her up and kissed her, already working open the buttons of her blouse. But this time, in a harkening back to the old days perhaps, he took more time with her. Biting at her lips as he lifted her by the waist and carried her to her bed. Sitting and pulling her face-down over his knees, then pushing her skirt up to her waist and her lacy underwear down to mid-thigh. Demanding that she hold perfectly still as he alternated stroking her slick, aching cunt with smacking her anywhere that seemed tempting and sensitive. After a swift series of blows he would slide his fingers into her channel, pumping them hard or with excruciating deliberation, then take them away and whack her again if she moved a hair's breadth.   
  
"You're mine, Helen," he said after a time, as if she needed reminding. "And I love seeing you undone. I adore how utterly my own creature you are when we're together like this. Tell me," he asked, moving his fingers languidly inside her and teasing one around her clit, "are you like this with all your lovers? I know you've taken many over the years. Are you always such a perfect little groveling whore for them, like you are for me, my love?"  
  
Something in John's tone and choice of words sent a wave of bone-chilling fear swept over Helen, and her mouth seemed too dry to answer at first. Licking her lips, hoping he couldn't smell her terror, she answered with a shakier voice than she intended. She told him the truth. "No, John. I've only ever played the whore for you. I'm your creature, just as you said."  
  
Her mind was racing. In her night-stand, she knew, was a pistol. But the clip was out of it, and it might take too long to load and turn to fire. His reach was so much greater than hers, and his speed was uncanny. The thick stone walls and solid doors meant that screaming was probably a waste of time unless somebody was right outside in the corridor to hear her. She had a diving knife in her boot sheath, but she had taken her boots off earlier and they were across the room by her dressing table. A great deal too far away. She started examining things in the environment, looking for anything she might use as a weapon.   
  
She nearly jumped out of her skin when John pulled his hand free of her body and bent his head towards hers to speak again.   
  
"I wasn't planning to kill you just now, Helen, if that's what has your heart racing like a frightened rabbit's."  
  
She turned her head just enough to see him smirking at her. And she spoke from her heart, with the bitterness of more than a century behind her words. "I hate you for this, John. I have never hated anybody so much as I hate you right now."  
  
His expression never changed. Weary, amused. She flashed back to the first time she had studied his naked body, his easy humor at her clinical thoroughness. The way he had put his hands on top of his head, and they had ruffled his now long-departed hair.   
  
"I know," he said almost sadly, as though he had to bear bad news but regretted it very much for her sake. "And you hate even more that you still desire me, after all I've done to you. You long for my touch. You even still love me. It defies understanding."  
  
She pressed her face back into the duvet, fisting her hands into the soft, silk-clad down. "Just do what you came here to do, John."  
  
"Do you know, I think I will do just that, my one true love."  
  
He did, with a vengeance, pulling her legs over the side of the bed and taking her from behind so forcefully it rattled her teeth. He bit into the back of her shoulder like an animal to hold her more firmly in place beneath him. Then he slowed, and Helen felt him gathering some of her fluids on his finger before he started probing her arsehole. It had been over a hundred years since the last time anyone had done that, and he had been the last one to do it. She was surprised he took as much care as he did now, preparing her thoroughly, entering her slowly. Some holdover, perhaps, from those first days when loving her meant cherishing her.   
  
It surprised Helen, too, when she felt a climax building as John reasserted his claim on that much smaller, tighter passage. It burned like hellfire, and she hated him to the marrow of her being, and after his considerate start he reverted to type and pounded into her. But every wicked thrust of his hips pushed her pelvis against the edge of the bed just so, and his testicles slapped firmly at her needy cunt. Just when she thought she was ready to scream at him to stop, she screamed and came and came and came instead. John grunted and emptied himself inside her as she spasmed, squeezed too tight to hold himself back. He slumped over her as they wound down together. His warmth on her back was unexpectedly comforting.  
  
When he pulled out of her, everything burned anew, causing tears to spring to Helen's eyes. By the time she pushed herself up off the bed and turned around, he was already gone.   
  
* * * * *  
  
The internet had been a mixed blessing for Helen. She was an early adopter, because she had recognized early on that the phenomenon was truly something new. It was a game-changer, and she could only cope with those changes by staying one step ahead of them. Her initial fear was that any sighting of abnormals would become so difficult to hide, once people started posting so much of their information publicly. For a brief time that was true, but then there was a correction. People countered all this information with increased skepticism, because there was so much erroneous information distributed on the web. Though many readers were hopelessly gullible, the truth of any given item was always being questioned by someone. The signal-to-noise ratio was also helpful, as any one piece of information on the web was easily swamped by a million other pieces of information. And, frankly, it helped that so many habitues of the virtual world were clearly delusional. The internet turned out to be less like a giant world-wide encyclopedic library, and more like a giant world-wide tabloid newspaper.   
  
The lure of instant and endless information made it even harder for Helen to sleep, but at least it gave her something to do while she was up. So while the Sanctuary slumbered, its leader often read deep into the night and on into morning, her face lit only by the glow of her computer screen until the sun crept over the horizon.   
  
Her research was wide-ranging, and it was perhaps inevitable that she would eventually stumble upon the darker places of the internet. The irritation of flashing banners with improbable-looking topless women, the sudden bewilderment of accidentally landing on a site that features hard-core pornographic video for sale. They were more annoyances than anything else, and she quickly learned to avoid them. But she was intrigued by the increasing number of non-commercial sites - communities, blogs, social networking groups - that existed to discuss the philosophy and practice of sexual behaviors she had always considered aberrant. Most of the people who frequented such forums did not treat these things as aberrant at all. Just one subset of behavior out of an infinite array of possibilities. Suddenly a person could buy his or her floggers and leashes from discreet internet retailers. Tasteful virtual storefronts (with no flashing breasts in sight) marketed sleek, well-packaged products for the discerning individual or couple. 'New eco-friendly lines', they advertised, and 'surgical grade, guaranteed phthalate-free'. Skilled artisans sold beautifully crafted collars that were meant to be worn in plain view, on the street.   
  
Helen learned new terms, finally assigning vocabulary to the roles and dynamics she had thought so unusual. Not just sadist and masochist, but Dominant and submissive, lifestyle slaves and scenes and aftercare. She recognized, in the descriptions of 'subspace', that hazy state she reached when the pain and pleasure melted into pure sensation and she lost the ability to reason for herself. Lost even the desire to do so. It was apparently a state avidly sought by many people with heavy responsibilities at work or home. She was, it seemed, a classic type of bedroom submissive.   
  
Helen had long since worked out the physiology of what John had done to her. She knew about endorphins, of course, and a fair amount about conditioning. But some of the people on these sites had a depth of knowledge about behavioral psychology that would put any clinician to shame. For a variety of reasons. And Helen learned that while she might qualify as a submissive, John was never truly a Dominant in the way that role was described in this fascinating new literature.   
  
Because, of course, John was actually a cold-blooded murderer who had no deep moral compunction about killing her; he had only stayed his hand out of some memory of affection, or some sense of her utility to him. She had been seeing only the baseline of violence he required to find sexual gratification with her; it had never been a hobby or a game or even a fetish, with John. He wanted to kill her like all the others, but he couldn't, so he had trained her to accept this other thing that somehow took the edge off for a time.   
  
The reality of this new perspective had taken time to sink in. In the meantime John had returned, and she thought she could keep him at a distance but found herself still unable to do so. But perhaps the difference in his treatment of her had as much to do with her own response as it did with John himself. Perhaps he sensed she was no longer quite so deeply in his thrall. Having a vocabulary for it all gave her mind a framework for thinking about it. And knowing that what he was doing did not quite fit that framework made it easier for Helen to see that while she was no deviant in the relative scheme of things, John certainly was. It had revived her fear of him, seeing things in this new way. She could no longer fail to remember she was doing these things with a killer. Letting him do these things to her. But it had also given her the impetus and the strength to change.   
  
After the night she remembered so vividly, she took to keeping the clip in her nightstand gun, and making sure her sheathed knife was stowed beneath her pillow once she took it off. John's presence in the Sanctuary was fairly commonplace now, and he might come and go as he pleased. Once inside the EM shield's boundaries, he could even move from place to place within the grounds in his own unique fashion. But Helen resolved that she would no longer make him welcome in her bedroom.   
  
As it happened, she never got the chance to make that stand. First there was the discovery of the creature inhabiting John, the dark entity that had driven him to his murderous insanity so many years ago and stayed with him ever since. Tesla's jolt had stunned it, evidently, but not killed it; this latest shock had not killed it either, just sent it running from its host. And for a brief, poignant time while the being ran rampant in her home, Helen saw her John in front of her again. Her own John, from so long ago. She was suspicious because she had learned to be, but she knew it was really John the moment she looked into his eyes. She would have known him anywhere, even though she hadn't seen him in several lifetimes. How could she have ever thought him capable of the atrocities the entity had forced him to commit?   
  
And then, before she could even think through all the implications, John vanished again. Heroically taking back into himself the thing that had tortured her so harshly and blissfully, leaving her alone to wonder if she'd ever really known him at all. If her long affair had always truly been with the malevolent creature that called John its home.   
  
He would be back, she assumed. Will thought not, but Helen knew better than to relax her guard. Her own John might have meant to play the hero, re-absorbing his dark companion and pulling it with him into permanent disintegration. Dying just as Ashley had done, in one last flash of self-sacrifice. But once that thing was back inside him, Helen had no trust that the real John's influence would prevail. She only hoped it was enough to keep him away long enough for her to recover.  
  
Either way, she realized, John Druitt was gone. He had been gone almost from the start, only she hadn't known it. Seeing him again had been a shock, and Helen grieved for all the wasted time. John's wasted life. If they had only known earlier that he wasn't himself, that it wasn't just a change wrought by the source blood, how different things might have been. This was not the type of thinking Helen indulged in very often, but now it dominated her thoughts. She saw the life they might have had, if the creature had been somehow detected and removed when John first showed signs of disturbance. She and John could have been together all this time, exploring every inch of the world, delighting in one another and in every new discovery. Building the Sanctuary network together, working as partners. Raising Ashley, and perhaps having more children. Being a family.   
  
Or - and even in her despondency, Helen knew this was a more likely scenario - they might have married and stayed together for some time, quarreled almost constantly, butted heads over every aspect of the Sanctuary, and wound up preferring to live on opposite sides of the world from one another. They had been a good match in many ways, but they were too alike in so many others; competition might have easily been their undoing, given enough time. And unless that creature had simply been building on what was already in John's head, she suspected she probably would have been bored with the sex within a few years. The first few times with John had been lovely and thrilling, but Helen knew herself well enough to know she did not prefer lovely little thrills on the whole. With her new lexicon, she knew that her flavor of choice was not quite "vanilla". As an occasional dish, that was refreshing; as a staple, however, she preferred the kind of sex that tended to leave some marks. Not necessarily the kind a whip might leave; fingers and mouths and an abundance of enthusiasm can be quite destructive all on their own, as can words.  
  
And John hadn't been the one to show her that side of herself, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first posted this fic at sanctuaryfiction.net, a few folks have commented on how learning the words to describe the D/s dynamic was so powerful for Helen. 
> 
> This is actually a "thing" in linguistics/psychology/cognitive theory. It's called linguistic relativity, or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis; the idea is that our words do actually inform our cognition, to the degree that different cultures actually think differently about concepts because the language they use regarding those concepts is structured differently. Or perhaps not, if you believe Chomsky and the like instead (in this regard I prefer Whorf, obviously). Either way, it's a fascinating field of study. One wishes that, for example, more politicians were aware of this when considering foreign policy. Sigh. For more information, see Wikipedia on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir–Whorf_hypothesis.


	4. Chapter 4

It took Helen weeks to understand what she had lost. Not so much John, who was lost long ago, but the idea of John. The idea that he might one day be restored to her, his soul somehow cleansed of his heinous crimes. As if redemption were possible. It was a hope she had carried with her, something to look forward to, that helped sustain her through dark times. But now that she had separated the John she once knew from the John whose mind was not his own, she knew that she could never get John back. She'd never really had him to begin with. 

They were young and in love when it started, and they were passionate about what they believed in. Passionate about one another. But she hadn't been that person for a very long time, despite the almost-unchanging image in her mirror. Her needs, her expectations, were fundamentally different now. There was no way to know if the woman she was now would even want John Druitt. No way to know what type of man John might turn out to be after all this time. And in any case, there was no way to know if he could ever be freed of his terrible stowaway again.

Freeing John and destroying the creature was the type of crusade she might have taken on for love. But she wouldn't do it for the possibility of renewing something that might once have been love, but might now turn out to be a loving friendship at best. Not when such an attempt would almost certainly pose enormous risks. Finding John could be a deadly game, to begin with, even assuming she was right and he hadn't disappeared into the void for good. Catching him and detaining him if he didn't want to cooperate...so much could go wrong there, and since John was involved things could go lethally wrong. Not to mention coming up with a procedure for getting the thing out of him and containing it in the first place. Having Nikola around might help, because now that they knew the problem he could probably contrive a solution. But she wasn't sure she trusted Nikola with this, or was willing to accept the sort of quid pro quo he might demand. And she wasn't sure she and Henry could figure it out on their own. 

And then of course there was the biggest risk, the one she wasn't supposed to acknowledge or treat as a legitimate factor in her decision. The risk that John would be restored to his old self, but the love between them would be dead. And he would know, because he had been there, that what Helen really wanted was what his then-unrecognized silent partner had been giving her. She was not ashamed of who she was, the choices she had made in life, the strange desires she had recently come to rethink. But she thought her heart might break to see John, her own John, look at her in mortified disbelief as he remembered doing all those terrible things to her, things he would never willingly have done...and then remembered how she had begged and begged for more. 

* * * * *

 

  
It was a process, like any of the mind's important work. It took as much time as it took. If she had learned nothing else in all her days on earth, Helen knew that the psyche had its own agenda and timeline, and one did best to allow it that freedom. Certain issues could not be forced. In the long run it was not reason that mattered most; it was understanding. Acceptance.

So she allowed herself to not think about the quandary with John. She felt a great many things about it, and she allowed herself to feel. To cry, at times. To pity herself a little - though that never lasted for long, it was simply too pointless and she had better things to do. And over the course of days and weeks, she came to certain tentative conclusions. John as she had known him was gone. The ability to admire him once more, after such a long time, was a gift she had never thought to receive, and she was grateful for it. But if he came back now - the version of him with that thing still warping his soul - she would no longer be tempted, because she would know that was no longer John. She considered whether she was lying to herself about this, but decided that on the whole she thought not. She might have had strong feelings about the things she had done with the man she'd thought of as John, but revulsion had never been one of them before now. 

Which meant it was time to move on. 

The spot John Druitt had occupied in her heart and mind was vacant now, because it hadn't been John there after all. His own lasting place in her heart was somewhere else, someplace quieter and deeper in the background. But in the forefront of her mind now, she felt a new loneliness. No phantom almost-husband would be beating his way back to her door, no distant lover would spark her dreams with memories or dark anticipation. She was free, but she was alone in a way she had never been alone. For a time, the sheer novelty of that was somehow enjoyable. Novelty nearly always was.

But it was also surreal. A new form of denial, perhaps. She suspected Will might consider it such. She enjoyed it in the way she had once enjoyed the pleasant indifference granted her after several glasses of wine; the sudden shift in perspective had numbed her a bit, eliminating joy but also blessedly eliminating pain. She thought it was not denial but the effect of denial's end. Helen had to determine who she was, now, what the absence of John made of her. In the meantime, she felt vague and not quite herself, not caring too much because she wasn't sure how to care. And she found she didn't mind that in the least. 

* * * * *

 

  
Will didn't think it was denial. He thought she was depressed. Anhedonic. She'd told him that was nonsense; why, that very morning she had taken a great deal of pleasure from watching the sunrise. She'd taken at least five minutes' break to sip her tea and admire the pretty colors.

"You need to get away from work, Magnus."

It was hardly the first time he'd suggested it, and she knew it would not be the last.

"It hasn't been seven years," she reminded him. "Too soon for a holiday. Somebody has to get things done around here."

"Are you calling me a slacker?" A quirk of a smile. He knew she was calling him no such thing.

His tone with her had changed of late. It was subtle. She liked it. She wondered if the change was really Will's demeanor or her own perception of it. But she liked it either way. Not flirting, exactly. Just a mutual understanding that underneath everything they said and did, there was a world of other possibilities. Hinting at those possibilities without naming them was something Will did quite well. Helen couldn't help but feel flattered by the attention, by this beautiful young man who so clearly found her desirable. He reminded her of James in some ways, his lateral thinking and his reticence to play to an audience. He was a reluctant hero, not because he lacked the strength or willingness to sacrifice for others, but because he did not like to be characterized as heroic. He was too self-aware for that. More self-aware, really, than James ever was.

"Much as I appreciate your concern, Will, I can't take the time right now. Not with this power struggle going on." It was true, the shakeup in the central administration of the Sanctuary network had created nothing but headaches for its creator. She had never before felt the need to defend herself in that way; she was Helen Magnus, after all. But now...all bets were off, and she was scrambling to cover her arse, make sure she could hold her own against any future opposition.

He tilted his head to one side, appraising her from across her desk. She could almost see him putting his psychiatrist hat on, and the thought nearly made her break into a snicker. She had to look down at her work to keep a straight face. It was a strange feeling, because it felt like weeks since she'd last smiled. The last thing she should be doing was suppressing it.

"Who has more time than you do, Magnus?"

Her eyes flicked toward him and then back down at the page in front of her, a dry budget summary. Sometimes she hated it when people said things like that, and this was such a time. She required no reminding of her chronological realities. 

"You're hardly the first to point that out."

He shrugged. "Yeah, I'm sure. And I won't be the last. But I'm the one who's pointing it out right now." 

He seemed a little bitter. They always got that way eventually. No man likes to realize he is probably not a main character in the story of a woman's life. To give Will credit, at least he seemed bitter on her behalf. He wasn't trying to plead his own case. He was frustrated because she was making his job more difficult. 

"Will, where do you see yourself in, say, twenty years?"

She wasn't sure why she'd asked. Will frowned and answered more quickly than she expected. 

"Probably crawling through the ductwork, looking for some escaped Nubbins because the climate control has gone on the fritz." He passed a hand under his glasses, shifting them to rub at the bridge of his nose with two fingers. "Hopefully not chasing down any more freaky snake-things. Not that the Nubbins are any picnic, mind you. But at least they don't give me nightmares." 

"Really? They do give me nightmares." She rolled her pen back and forth across the desk. "But I wasn't talking about where you saw yourself at work." 

He paused, clearly baffled. "I - neither was I. Well, I mean obviously it's work too, but...I don't know, Magnus. That line is sort of blurred for me now. I'm not sure what you want me to say, here."

"You've already said it," she murmured, staring at her pen but not really noticing it. "Think about what you just said, and now consider why I have difficulty even imagining a vacation. Once you're in this world, Will, it's impossible to ignore the evidence of it all around you. I remember going to my villa once some time ago, oh, perhaps in the eighties, this must have been. The nineteen eighties. And I spent two of my three days there down in a cellar, studying a rare species of beetle with unique camouflage abilities related to the reflection and refraction of light at specific color temperatures. Total invisibility, similar to what Griffin demonstrated but with a completely different mechanism. They'd been there for decades, centuries perhaps, but nobody had ever identified their abnormal properties. I go looking for a bottle of Montrachet and there they are. I can't get away from it. I can take a vacation from the people, I suppose, or this location. But from the work? Never."

"And the Nubbins even haunt your dreams," he said, a little more archly than usual. "You could have warned me what I have to look forward to." 

"Once you're in a position to understand the warning, it's too late."

"I guess I'll just have to live with it, then."

"And that's all? No home? No...the kinds of things people usually want, a family, children, all of it?"

He gave her a look she couldn't interpret, which was unusual for Helen. "I have a home and a family. True, it's non-traditional, but at least it's functional. Sort of. And as for children and all of that, I don't know. It's a problem."

"How so?"

"For one thing, my last on-the-job safety issue involved a pair of psychic spiders from beyond the deep taking over my brain, and some imaginary woman in a sari who made me wander around the streets of Mumbai, jabbering and dancing like a psychotic love fool. I can hear that one now. 'Gee, honey, how was your day? Will you be home in time for Junior's soccer game?' But we were supposed to be talking about you, Magnus."

"Are you being obstreperous with me, Will?"

His grin was engaging, adorable, a little too sweet; she was instantly suspicious.

"I've hit a nerve. Good."

"If I promise to knock off early today, have a nice hot bath or something, will you leave me alone about this?"

He stood up, his grin morphing into something more guarded, and rested his fingertips on her desk, leaning over it slightly. "A glass of wine and a hot bath of at least thirty minutes in length."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me."

She scowled at him. "If I spend more than ten minutes in a bath I'll go stark staring mad with boredom."

"Twenty-five."

"Hmm. I suppose I could go to fifteen. Maybe."

"Twenty is my final offer."

She didn't know why she was proceeding as though his order had any authority behind it, but the whole conversation was a bit surreal anyway so she just went with it. "I don't like reading in the bath and spoiling the books with damp. I can't use my computer in there. I won't be relaxed if I'm bored to death, Will."

"I'll find you a rubber ducky to play with." He was leaning over more assertively, now. He said the rubber ducky line with a straight face, which impressed Helen more than she cared to admit. But she still wanted to wipe the composure clean off him, and she knew a sure method for it, though it was hardly a wise method. 

Looking straight into his eyes and curling her lips in just a hint of a smile, she said,"Very well. I don't think a ducky will be necessary, doctor. If I simply must take a long, hot bath, I'm sure I can find something to do to entertain myself."

A slight tension in his upper lip and the corner of his eyes betrayed him, but he held himself together well. "Am I going to have to set a timer and check on you?"

"Don't you trust me to follow a doctor's orders? And by the way, are you sure this is a legitimate therapeutic recommendation?"

He stood up, biting his lip, and started for the door. "I'm definitely setting a timer. And don't even try coming back to your office or the lab after dinner, Magnus. You need a break, and if you won't take one long one, it'll have to be a bunch of short ones. It's this or a plane ticket to Italy."

Helen laughed as he walked out, but once the door was closed behind him she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. He had crossed over the line into flirting, now, crossed it quite flagrantly, and she shouldn't have allowed it to continue...much less flirted back. But he was also right, of course, and that was why she had capitulated so easily. The laughter hurt her ribs a little, and she knew it was from disuse. She needed to laugh again; she needed to relax. Helen knew all that. She felt at odds with herself, and with her team, and until her sense of equilibrium restored itself she needed to do something to calm her nerves. Though the conversation with Will hadn't exactly been calming.

She had about two more hours before the Big Guy was likely to have dinner ready. Resolving to do as much as possible within that time, Helen turned to her computer and delved into her to-do list. Try as she might, though, she couldn't stop smiling from time to time at the idea of a bright yellow rubber duck floating in her bathtub. 


	5. Chapter 5

Will had been more discreet than she expected. He clearly did see this as part of his professional responsibility, at least the subject of their talk if not the tone, and he didn’t speak a word about their conversation within hearing of anybody else. He only poured her a glass of merlot - her second, as she had enjoyed one with dinner as well - and gave her a pointed look after the table was cleared.

But he had provided a much more specific prompt, which she found hanging from her doorknob when she retired to her room.

It was a pale blue gift bag, with silver string handles and festive silver tissue paper fluffing out the top. Inside, Helen found a squeaky yellow rubber duck with a label secured around its neck. From Will’s familiar scribble of medical shorthand she translated, “Apply once per day, with water, duration twenty minutes or more.”

He had laminated the tag and fastened it to the duck’s neck with a heavy plastic zip-tie, so it wasn’t going anywhere. Helen thought it added a jaunty flair to the ducky, not that any further jauntiness was required since the toy already sported a tiny pirate hat and eye patch.  

The duck looked good in her tub, she decided, a bright yellow note against the piles of vanilla-scented bubbles. She tried dunking it, and it came right back up. Ready for more. Cheerful and resilient. Two qualities she had once possessed, and would like to regain.

Picking up her watch from the stool at the side of her quaint, claw-foot tub, Helen noted that she still had eighteen minutes of bath time left. She had already scrubbed everything that required scrubbing, rinsed same, and played with the rubber ducky. She rested her head against the broad lip of the tub, trying to release the tension in her shoulders and back. A long round with the heavy bag, she thought, might have been more useful as a relaxation technique. Or a deep tissue massage. Or a thorough beating with an elk hide flogger.

Helen opened her eyes and stared at the duck in silent accusation. Where the hell had  _that_  thought come from? Many a long year had passed since the last time she found relaxation that way. And it had always taken an emotional toll far outweighing the physical benefit. John was skilled because he knew anatomy, knew her limits, and was obsessively competitive with himself about any athletic activity; using a whip of any kind was like sport to him, and he had studied the form until he had a solid mastery of both theory and practice. But he recognized that it was keenly enjoyable for her, too much so for his liking; her pleasure was always colored by the knowledge that she would pay for it at some point in the future.

She could still recall the feeling of bonelessness, melting into John’s mattress after he had finished with her. Knowing he would see to her needs then, and for once not minding that dependence. She always felt she’d more than earned that chance to stop thinking. He had been wont to sneak a caress the day after such an event, running a finger down her spine or resting it beneath her shoulder-blade, reminding her of how he’d touched her the night before. Never letting her forget.

For once, instead of letting her mind begin its usual recent round of questioning - who had really been using her body that way, and was the real John in there, at least for the parts that felt like care? Did that make the preceding bits better, or worse? How much did John even know, and how much of his mind was purely the creature now? - Helen forced herself to think of something else. She focused on the duck, letting her eyes trace its curves and see its colors, letting her mind ascertain its features without trying to name them, classify them. An exercise in zen.

No use. It was still just a rubber duck dressed like a pirate, and although being in the moment had its time and place, Helen couldn’t resist another peek at her watch. Fifteen minutes left. Evidently she had sought satori for a mere three minutes at most. A shameful effort. But she just hadn’t been in the mood. Her mind was restless, shifting from the vision of herself nude and exhausted in John’s bed to the more recent memory of stretching across his lap as he stroked all the places he knew better than anyone else. She was tired of self-discipline; she did that all the time. She wanted the other kind for a change. But she did not want to fall back on these images, these sense memories of her experiences with John that had turned out to be something so different from what she’d thought at the time.

There weren’t too many others who had left a strong enough impression to stand the test of time in her mind; you had to strike hard to leave your mark on Helen Magnus. And so many of the best made her too sad to recall in this context. Sweet James, so in love, so sure she never really knew the extent of his devotion. The few lovers she’d risked a deeper attachment to, mostly early on in her strange career. Dead now, gone, all of these men she’d almost loved, and a few notable women as well. Nikola was the only current surviving repeat offender, she realized - and she would hardly call that a deep attachment, more an occasional shared descent into convenient madness. There were one or two others, scattered here and there across the map, but none that were worth recalling in a fantasy.

Fingers danced across her mind’s eye, lifting with a question, pressing in a firm row across her desk with the knuckles slightly whitened from the pressure. Hands whose position on a gun grip she had corrected a few times.  She tended to think of them as smooth, soft, and she was surprised each time she saw them do something strong and capable. She liked those hands, quite a lot. Not as important as the eyes, but she couldn’t think about those eyes just now, so she let her mind coast along on thoughts of surprisingly deft fingers while her own hands traveled from her collarbones down to the crests of her breasts. She dabbled at the waterline, thinking of how another set of hands might dabble. Might dip below the water and slip in lazy wet circles around nipples that were already tight and tingling with need. One of those hands would linger there only briefly before moving along, moving down, finding a welcoming space between her legs.

Helen knew the dimensions of her bathtub very well. She didn’t need to open her eyes to place herself perfectly. The ball of the left foot braced automatically against the end near the drain, her shoulders found their customary angle against the sloped back wall, and she raised her right foot to rest on the edge. If worn indentations came to be visible in those particular spots, after so many years, Helen would hardly be shocked.

Now she let her thighs relax and spread, and thought of fingers touching her for the first time. Learning her. Conducting a leisurely exploration of her labia, teasing and tugging at curls that were not quite as dark as the dyed hair on Helen’s head. Smoothing those curls away to navigate the delicate fold of flesh over her clitoris until finally giving in and stroking there in measured rotations.

She abandoned her nipple and let her other hand join the fray, sliding two fingers just inside her inner lips and scissoring them to stretch the sensitive tissue. Entertaining herself very well indeed.

_“Am I going to have to set a timer and check on you?”_

She pushed that thought away as being too specific, but a few moments later it popped back up, persistent as the yellow duck that kept washing over her shoulder and nudging her in the ear.

_His hands pushed firmly off the desk and he stepped slowly around it to stand by her chair, pulling it around so she faced him. She tilted her head and looked up into his thoughtful eyes as he bent over her with his hands on the armrests._

Helen sighed heavily, wanting to banish this line of thought but too far gone into her arousal to think clearly about it. She knew it was a bad idea to think about it. She knew she felt good thinking about it. Feeling took precedence, and she finally gave up and let her mind go where it would while her hands moved over her body with the confidence of long practice.

_“Don’t you trust me to follow a doctor’s orders?”_

_He smiled knowingly and leaned closer to answer, “Do you trust me enough to follow my orders, Helen?”_

_“Yes,” she whispered, mesmerized by his steady gaze until he spun the chair slowly another half-turn. When next he spoke, she felt his lips and warm breath at her ear, brushing softly at the hairs that trailed down from the casual knot on top of her head._

_“Then close your eyes,” he instructed, “and don’t move unless I tell you to. Do you understand, Helen?”_

_She nodded, licking at lips too dry to form an answer._

_And then there were hands, trailing from her shoulders down over her breasts, cupping the sensitive mounds only briefly before continuing down. Fingers nimbly tugged her skirt up until the hem grazed the tops of her thighs, and then those same fingers placed her own hands firmly back on the armrests of the chair when she tried to help._

_“Keep your hands there,” he reminded her, voice firm but amused. “Don’t move them again. But put your right foot up on your desk. There, perfect,” he praised her as she complied. Trembling, anxious, but eager._

_He pressed one hand over the frill of midnight blue lace covering her cunt, and murmured his approval upon finding that she was already wet. His words only made her wetter, readier for his touch. Then his other hand slid down between silk and skin, finding her clitoris with uncanny accuracy and circling it with a finger. Harder and faster, harder and faster by increments, and when he finally worked his other hand beneath the lacy barrier and rammed two fingers into her slick heat, Helen was already halfway to gone._

_“Come for me, Helen,” he commanded, and she dismissed the echo of John that command evoked. She arched her back and whimpered as the climax began to take over her senses. “You need this. Give me this. Now!”_

_He whispered his last words in her ear, and hot pleasure flared in her blood and brain and…_

And then Helen called out a name she didn’t intend to say as her fingers flew, drawing out the orgasm until every last shudder was pulled from her body.

When the spasms eased, Helen pulled her shaky leg down from the tub’s edge, sat up, and rolled her shoulders until they popped. Then she let her face fall into her wet hands, and she muttered a very rare but heartfelt curse into the silence of the room.

“ _Fuck_.”

 

*******

 

“So how did it go?” He asked the next morning in the lab, as if he were asking her about something else entirely. Something to do with work, something that meant nothing much to either of them.

“I lasted eighteen minutes. Then I ran out of things to do,” she said over her shoulder, not meeting his eye. Then she returned her focus to the computer in front of her, studying the double helix on the screen. 

“That’s about eight minutes longer than I expected, so good job. Did it help?”

She kept her eyes trained to the spirals, pretending to find them fascinating. “I suppose. To an extent.”

“Do you want me to push you for more information?”

How had he known that, when she hadn’t herself until he said it?

“There’s not much more to tell.”

Without even looking, she knew his expression had changed. He would be wearing his professional face, his pleasantly bland, nonjudgmental clinician’s mask. He looked so harmless when he put it on. A sweet, trustworthy, neutral party. That irritated her now, because she suspected he felt anything but neutral about the situation. Anything but professional.

Will sat down in the wheeled chair next to her, turning lazily until he was facing her. She could see him from the corner of her eye, watching her pretend to work. He would change the subject next, she suspected. Lull her into a false sense of security by making her think he had stopped pursuing the information she wanted.

“Is this the report you got yesterday from Ark-Fong?”

“Yes. He’s looking for a viable alternative food source for the lotus elk, as he’s had trouble maintaining a seroslug population in captivity. This is a closely related slug, and we thought it might be the original species that spawned the mutation. Now, though, it appears it has some unique defenses against the lotus elk, among other interesting properties. It may be a divergent mutation itself.”

Will turned his head and peered dubiously at the large specimen cylinder that sat beside the monitor. The tightly sealed jar was three-quarters full of what appeared to be murky water, on top of which floated a beautifully formed cerise pink lotus amid three slightly cupped leaves. “I see.”

“I rather doubt it,” she murmured cryptically, “which is the point.”

He leaned closer to the jar, and coincidentally closer to her shoulder, trying to get a better look. “Okay, I’ll bite. What am I not seeing?”

“If I tell you, will you leave me in peace to work, Will?”

“Maybe.”

With a sigh, she reached over his arm and tapped on the lid briskly, holding her position to observe the result. As they watched, several of the lotus’s bright petals seemed to melt away, and the water between the leaves bubbled turbulently for a second or two. Then the activity died down, leaving Will to look at Helen, baffled. She smiled at his obvious bewilderment.

“That isn’t a lotus, to begin with,” she explained. “It’s a kind of gall. The slug alters the structure of the lotus leaves so they form this instead of growing normally. Similar to what certain species of parasitic wasp can do, except that this structure is not only the slug’s nest for egg-laying and nourishing its young, but a permanent structure that the grown slugs live in and continue to feed from. It doesn’t kill the host plant, it actually takes the place of the flower, and it’s symbiotic with the host. And unlike the average wasp gall, this one perfectly mimics the appearance of the plant’s natural flowers, providing ideal camouflage. It even reproduces the smell. Animals looking for the slug only find the gall, and think it’s just another lotus flower.”

“Wow. Smart slugs. So what was the bubbly stuff?”

“That was the smart slug. It hides in the ersatz flower by stiffening its body into spikes that resemble the flower petals, and taking on their color. If a predator attacks the gall, it simply sheds its camouflage and melts into the water below, leaving the nest behind. Creatures who are attracted to the lotus flowers typically aren’t interested in eating the slugs, and they abandon the gall quickly once they taste it, so damage is usually minimal and limited to the remaining ‘petals’. The eggs and young are housed at the very base of the gall, so they’re generally safe.”

“That’s amazing, Magnus.”

Helen stole a peek at Will’s expression of fascination. She couldn’t help but find it attractive when a grown man of some intelligence retained the ability to experience awe when exploring the new. For all Will’s boyish charm and good looks, it was this timeless quality that appealed the most.

“I agree. Though it’s hardly good news for the lotus elk.”

He turned his cockeyed smile on her, reminding her just how close they were sitting. “I guess it’s not. But I actually meant it’s amazing how much you know about…well, everything.”

“Th-thank you.” She looked away, furious with herself for the blush she could feel staining her cheeks.

“You’re even smarter than a slug.”

Her hoot of laughter was loud enough to cause another ruffle in the specimen jar as the slug, just venturing back into its home, quickly abandoned it once more. She knew Will was flirting now, not even seriously attempting to hide it. But she couldn’t help herself; he was that engaging, she fell for it every time.

They both jumped as a louder series of hoots interrupted them; the Big Guy, bearing a tea tray, had obviously heard Will’s unique compliment and was adding his approval. He cuffed Will’s shoulder - Will knew he must be very amused, as it wasn’t a blow to the head - and kept chuckling as he walked back out.

Helen just shook her head and sipped her tea, knowing when to leave well enough alone. Once they were alone again, Will sighed and stood up.

“I need to get back to work, too,” he said. Clearly reluctant to go, he tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the table top and gave a last look at Helen as she turned back to her computer. He was still right next to her chair, right at her shoulder, and she flushed warmly from waist to knees as she recalled the start of her fantasy the night before. She struggled not to picture Will leaning over and turning her chair toward him, forcing her to crane her neck to meet his eyes.

“That’s probably a good idea,” she agreed.

He didn’t move. “The full twenty minutes tonight.”

“Oh. That’s highly unlikely, but I appreciate the-”

“Helen.”

It startled her to hear her first name, and she looked up out of reflex to see him looking at her with far, far too much knowledge and interest in his eyes. Before she could formulate a response, he repeated himself.

“The full twenty minutes tonight. But we’ve established that you’re a very smart woman,” he added, with a hint of a smile that went straight to the already uncomfortable heat at the crux of Helen’s thighs. “I’m sure you can figure out something relaxing to do in a hot bath for twenty minutes.”

Then he arched an eyebrow at her and sauntered away, leaving her to gape in astonishment as he departed.

_Cheeky. Bloody. Monkey._

 

*****

 

The wrapping was the same, a pale blue bag with silver tissue. But this evening, the bag on Helen’s doorknob turned out to contain a digital timer carefully sealed in a heavy-duty, clear waterproof bag. No scrawled prescription this time, just a printed white label on the top of the timer that read, “20 MINUTES.”

Helen put the bagged timer down next to the pirate ducky on the stool beside her tub and pondered whether to give in to this outrageous…whatever it was. Flirting, at the very least. Gift-giving with intent to provoke naughtiness, she thought she could probably prove. Rampant flouting of the traditional boundaries of the doctor-patient, employer-employee, and mentor-protegé relationships, to be sure.

She started the water and gazed moodily into her wine glass, pausing to knock back a heavy slug of the stuff. It was better wine than that, and she knew she was wasting it, but she suddenly wanted to regain just a bit of her recent numbness. Not that she would really get it from a few glasses of wine any more, but the idea was still there. It helped bolster her false sense that she was taking some sort of step. The only real step she took, however, was into the bath once the water was drawn and her clothes were off.

No bubbles tonight, she’d decided. The duck looked a bit lonely without them, though. She fiddled with the timer, setting it for twenty minutes so she wouldn’t have to lie about it later. The waterproof bag Will had sealed it in was a sturdy airline-approved style, and she wondered if she could get one in a size large enough to accommodate an e-reader. She didn't really like them for leisure reading, but if she could waterproof one it might be a workable compromise for bathtub reading.

That did her no good at the moment, however. Scrubbed and rinsed, she still found herself with just under seventeen minutes left to fill. She was feeling too self-conscious to follow the previous evening’s course of action. Will was right, she was smart enough to occupy herself for twenty minutes, and she was certain she could do so without resorting to  _that_. Besides,  _that_  carried the risk of heightening her already inappropriate awareness of Will to something she could no longer conceal. If indeed she was successfully concealing it now.

His voice, saying her name, echoed in her mind. He knew. Of course he did, they both did, and the situation was growing quite impossible to pretend ignorance about. At some point one of them was going to slip, and the whole thing would change. Helen regretted that, because she was rather enjoying the current state of things. She liked knowing that somebody - somebody who was not a serial killer, a vampire, a werewolf or even a legendary elusive forest creature, no matter how dear - was watching her with appreciation. It was sustaining, that feeling of male eyes following her throughout her day; it reminded her that no matter how long she might have been on this earth, she was still a woman in good health with all the usual feelings and needs that status implied. She ignored that part of her nature at her peril.

Also Will had smelled very, very good when she’d leaned past him to tap on the specimen jar. Some sort of spicy deodorant, and the slightly sweeter smell of whatever it was he put in his hair to make it look fashionably messy all the time. And something else that was just him, the thing that made those substances smell good on Will when the same fragrant products on, say, Henry, might have gone unnoticed by Helen for years.  She had never felt the slightest bit compelled to take a bite out of Henry.

She sighed and sent the duck skimming down to the end of the tub, spinning and bobbing until it fetched up against her feet. Then she tweaked the tag between two toes and pulled the yellow rubber anatid out of the water to observe it as it dangled. It was made of silicon, not rubber, she corrected herself. But ‘silicon ducky’ just didn’t ring true. Ashley had one made of rubber when she was very small, but most of the duckies these days were latex-free. So many things were now. Even condoms were available latex-free, which made sense to Helen when she considered how extreme a reaction people sometimes had to latex even when it  _wasn’t_  being rubbed repeatedly against highly sensitive and blood-engorged mucus membranes. Helen tried to steer her thoughts away from condoms and engorgement, back towards safer topics. Like, for instance, the many interesting facts she knew about species anatidae, the family of ducks, swans and geese. Anatids, Helen recalled, were among the very few bird species in which the males had penises.

Even the seemingly innocent ducky led her directly back to the topic she was trying to avoid.

She looked at the timer and saw she had fourteen long minutes left. There was nothing else for it. She dropped the duck, closed her eyes, and slid her hands down her body as she tried to think about anything other than Will Zimmerman.


	6. Chapter 6

In retrospect, Helen thought she had probably set herself up for failure with respect to maintaining the status quo. When the call had come from San Francisco to examine an unusual creature stranded in the bay, Helen had made arrangements to travel to the site the next day with Will to assist her, just as she would have done before. It was part of his job, after all. Adjoining rooms in the hotel, of course, because that was always more convenient when work ran late into the night during an investigation.

The difference was evident even before they left, however. In her own increasing tension, in Will's speculative silence. He caught her in a surprisingly unguarded moment in her office that afternoon, when she snapped a pencil in a fit of pique after the lead broke off during her second unsuccessful attempt to sharpen it. 

"I remember when these actually worked," she scolded, dashing the splintered halves into her wastebasket and jerking open the drawer where she kept the extras.

"Magnus," Will began softly.

"Don't," she warned, holding a hand up to stop him then returning to her search.

Will looked at her for a moment as though he were pondering something, then slowly got up and walked around her desk and behind her chair.

"What do you think you're doing?" she attempted to challenge him. Her voice, however, emerged in a breathy murmur. Not her intent, she thought. Not her intent at all. She stared at the dark, polished wood of her desk, trying desperately not to notice what Will smelled like.

He put his fingertips carefully on her shoulders and pressed down. "Helen, your shoulders are up by your  _ears_. You have got to unwind. I'm really starting to worry."

She'd been working out on the heavy bag before the call came, and she still wore a t-shirt and faded cargo pants, unusual for her when she was working in her office. As she often did, she felt insufficiently dressed for male company when she wasn't wearing her typical layers of professional attire, or at least a lab coat on top of less formal garb. Even her hair was scraped up into a ponytail, depriving her of the relative protection her thick mane usually offered. Now she felt Will's touch far too keenly, but she knew the clothes were probably the least of it. She could have been in head-to-toe kevlar and she probably would have reacted the same way to his fingers and then his hands smoothing down the knotted muscles from her neck to her upper arms.

"It's been an unusually trying few months," she said. Will laughed gently at the understatement. He pressed her shoulders down again, because they had already crept back up. He started working the muscle connections at the base of her skull, and after a few seconds Helen closed her eyes and hummed as Will's thumbs found the worst spots and began to work them loose. One set of muscles at a time, neck to shoulders, and she could't help interjecting. 

"The sternocleidomastoid is particularly bad on the right side."

"Shh." His fingers moved to the sides of her neck and traced the muscles, his fingers seeking out the tension. "I know what I'm doing. Just let me do it. Your job is just to relax. And your scalenes are worse, by the way. Although..."

He shifted down to feel along her clavicles, then applied deep pressure along the muscles that ran beneath them from her neck. Helen whimpered at the sudden shock of pain in her chest, then sighed when he let his hands relax and her neck and chest muscles began to unwind with a tingling chill. Her muscles lengthened, but as Will's hands lingered along her collarbones, Helen felt her nipples tighten. The collar of her t-shirt scooped just deep and wide enough that he could reach her collarbones without having to make an over-or-under-the-shirt decision. She wondered which way he would have gone with it.

Will did know what he was doing. After several more minutes her neck and shoulders felt looser, and the nagging tension headache she'd been battling since morning had disappeared. But he kept working, lightening his touch and running his fingers back up to stroke her neck again. He rolled his thumbs gently up alongside her vertebrae and into the hairline.

At a certain point, Helen realized her head was lolling back against Will's body, and he was not so much massaging her neck and temples as playing with her hair. She lifted her head and opened her eyes, trying to reorient herself.

"I think," she said, noticing the time, "my tea is late. I suppose I should call-"

The characteristic noise of porcelain sliding over wood interrupted her as Will pushed a steaming cup of tea across the desk to her. He used one hand to do it; the other remained cupped around the back of her head.

"The Big Guy brought it in a few minutes ago," he said quietly.

"He did?" She touched the gilded handle as though she thought the cup and saucer might disappear.

"He did." Both hands again now. His fingertips had located the sensitive areas on her neck behind and below her ears, and Helen could hardly think for the distraction it was causing her. Will leaned against the back of her chair, obviously comfortable with what he was doing.

The Big Guy had brought her tea in, she processed, while her eyes were closed and Will was massaging her neck. He had been so quiet she hadn't heard him. He hadn't grunted, hadn't clobbered Will on the back of the head, hadn't said a word to her. He'd just come in, seen Will doing what he was doing, left the tea and apparently closed the door on his way out.

Damned if the Big Guy hadn't just given Will his blessing. Helen wondered if the result would have been the same had her eyes been open.

"I need to finish some things up before I pack," she told Will. He gave her neck a final stroke, and Helen thought she felt a feather-light kiss on the top of her head before he moved away. "Thank you, I feel much better now."

"Don't forget to pack your therapeutic bath accessories," he deadpanned, heading straight for the door. Just as he opened it he turned, and Helen caught a glimpse of frustrated desire in his expression as he looked back across the room at her. "I'm thinking of increasing your time to twenty-five minutes."

Helen smiled and rolled her eyes. "Twenty minutes is pushing it already. Have you ever stopped to think about what I could be accomplishing in that much time?"

Will nodded. "That's pretty much all I've been thinking about lately. And just think what you could accomplish in twenty-five minutes." He shot her a devilish look and left before she could respond.

 

* * * * *

 

When they boarded the plan to San Francisco, the creature they were on their way to investigate was still alive. It died while they were en route, as they discovered once their cell phones were turned on again after landing. Will's stomach was already preparing for the worst - helping Helen with the autopsy.

"Put some mentholatum under your nose," Helen suggested.

Will did, and reported to her that as a result the dead sea monster's intestines smelled like mentholated dead sea monster intestines. He wasn't sure that was much of an improvement, he added. But at least he wasn't throwing up. Yet.

Magnus, of course, was fascinated by the whole thing. If anything, the ghastly smell emanating from the creature's stomach just aroused her curiosity.

"Why are we dealing with so many squid, lately, I wonder? Look, there are plant remains here, and it looks like some gravel was ingested as well. For a digestive aid, perhaps? Although this one has probably been scavenging for whatever it can find. It might have got the gravel or even the kelp inadvertently," she muttered, prodding carefully at the stomach lining. "I'd always wondered if they were really solely pescatarians, though."

"If what were?" He turned even greener, and clamped his mouth shut tightly, clearly realizing it had been a bad idea to open it in the first place.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Will. I identified it when we walked in the room, I just assumed you heard me. It's a juvenile Kraken. Although what on earth it was doing in this part of the Pacific is a mystery to me. The poor thing appears to have died from hypothermia and exhaustion. Unlike normal giant squid that typically live in very deep, very cold waters, Kraken prefer more temperate seas. The Mediterranean, some around Java, I believe there's a cluster in the Hawaiian islands, places like that. Places that are warm all year round or that have plenty of volcanic activity. For the hot springs, you know."

"Mm hmm."

"This one's very small to be traveling so far on its own. I'll have to contact some people to see if anybody's been having trouble with a frantic mother missing her offspring."

She was recording her findings into a tape recorder as she worked, and for the next several minutes Will's job was thankfully limited to holding the recorder and, once or twice, holding some part of the creature out of the way while Magnus explored. Eight tentacles, with evil-looking suckers on them, and on the front pair some opposing appendages at the ends that strongly resembled fingers. Each tentacle was easily three times longer than Helen was tall, and the creature's head added nearly another two feet to its overall length. She explained to a pale and sweating Will that the adults grew to easily ten times this size, and were so intelligent they were almost impossible to capture or restrain. Dead Kraken were never seen washed ashore, and many speculated that the small family groups somehow disposed of any remains.

"I'm inclined to suspect they just eat the bodies," Helen remarked, just as she dislodged a particularly nasty hunk of partially digested fish from the Kraken's guts. "Will?"

But he was already bolting out the door.

 

* * * * *

 

The autopsy had left them far more time than an investigation of a living Kraken might have done, and there were no complicated transport arrangements to make. After gathering the evidence and speaking at some length with the saddened abnormal marine researcher who'd been monitoring the young megasquid, Helen and Will were able to return to their hotel with ample time to shower and change for dinner. This was a luxury almost unheard-of on such trips.

Will drove the rental car, because Helen had driven in San Francisco before and hated it. They went to Pier 39 to play at being tourists. After eating clam chowder out of sourdough bread bowls they wandered along the wharf, stopping to look at the sea lions gathering in the sunset on the waterlogged pilings beneath the pier.

"They're amazing," Helen said, watching the creatures interact with one another. A particularly big bull was bellowing, the noise carrying easily over the water. Less noteworthy barks and grumbles from the dozens of other animals formed a background babble not unlike a cocktail party. "I wonder why I find them so delightful? I mean, I look at animals all the time. Why should this be different?"

"Maybe because they're not abnormal."

"True. I can take or leave the seagulls, though, and they're perfectly normal as well."

"They don't look sorta like puppies and do cute things with flippers."

They laughed and watched a nearby gull tackle a french fry that somebody had dropped onto the wharf behind them.

"And," Helen added, turning back around to the more entertaining view of the sea lions, "you never see a seagull balancing a ball on its nose. Not that the sea lions are doing that either, but one knows they're capable of it."

"Mammals are programmed to have warm, protective feelings about things with soft, round features. It's so we'll want to take care of our young, or whatever. But seals never lose that look, they stay cute even as adults. Big round eyes, soft-looking bodies. So we think they're adorable."

"That makes a certain amount of sense." Then she cocked her head and gave him a lopsided smile. "I just realized something, Will. You haven't tried to make me talk about myself since we left the hotel. Are you feeling all right?"

He grinned. "I'm not working right now."

"I see." She couldn't resist poking at him. "So you only want to know what I'm thinking because it's your job?"

"We can never actually know what another person is thinking. Well, okay, telepaths may be able to. But even that can be fallible, as we know."

"Only too well."

He nodded and leaned on his elbows on the weathered railing that ran along the pier. "You know you can always just tell me what's on your mind, Magnus. You don't have to wait for me to ask."

"In your professional capacity?"

"Hey."

It was enough of a rebuke. "Sorry."

Will sighed. "In my professional capacity I wouldn't just come out and say this, all right? I know you've had a hell of a time recently. You have every reason to be a basket case right now."

"I see. Thank you."

"I'm not finished. And no, you don't see. And you're not a basket case. That's the problem. You're trying to ignore it. You're bottling it up instead of dealing with it. At some point it will have to be dealt with, and if you don't choose the time, I'm just afraid it'll all hit you some time when you really can't afford the distraction."

She frowned and fisted her hands where they rested on the railing next to Will's. "And so your solution was a rubber duck and a lot of double entendre?"

"Ah. Well, not exactly," he admitted with a sheepish look. "That was just to make you smile. And it worked, so I'm not apologizing."

It worked again; the corners of her mouth quirked up despite her effort to maintain a scowl. Encouraged, Will went on. "And, from a more professional standpoint, I'm trying to get you to program in more down time for yourself. Especially now, with all the things that have happened lately. It's a lot to process, and you need to acknowledge that you feel overwhelmed right now. Anybody would be, it's only human."

"But I'm not only human," she pointed out, trying to keep her face neutral. She didn't want to slip into another smile by accident. 

"It's still your default mode."

"That as may be, I also still have responsibilities. Those haven't disappeared just because I've lost...things, recently, in my life. People. I've lost people, all right? There, I've said it."

Will shrugged. "You've said it before."

Helen frowned at the implicit challenge to say more. Will was definitely not wearing his professional hat, she decided. "Work is how I'm getting through it. Which is good, because it's not as though anybody has offered to do that work for me."

"Nobody needs to. You're doing enough of it for several people right now. You don't want to leave yourself time to think. Or accidentally feel something you're not sure how to feel."

In the darkening chill, it was becoming more difficult for Helen to read Will's expression in profile. He didn't sound angry, or accusatory. Just pragmatic.

"Can you blame me?"

"I don't blame you," he assured her. "But I think everyone needs a break from their responsibilities sometimes, and I just wonder what it will take to enforce a break for you."

Helen closed her eyes briefly and then stepped out onto the high wire, hoping against hope that Will would provide the net. "I derived certain...benefits from my time spent with John. And that, that enforced break from responsibilities, was probably chief among them. That's part of what I've lost. I do recognize its importance, I simply have no idea how to replace it."

He was silent for a long time, long enough for Helen to grow a little anxious before he finally replied. She wished she could read his face, because she couldn't read his voice.

"Okay, I'll give you credit, Magnus, you haven't said that before." He seemed to be reaching for something more to say, and it took him a few seconds to get there. "I'm sorry, I'm trying not to use therapy language because I know you'll see through it. But I'm a guy, you know. I don't have a whole lot of other tools at my disposal for situations like this."

She cracked a smile at that. "I was aware of your gender, thank you."

"That's good to know. I must be doing something right."

In a gesture of pure affection, Helen looped her arm through Will's and leaned against his shoulder. 

"I'm not good at situations like this either, and I don't have the excuse of being male."

"I was aware of your gender," Will murmured, smirking.

"Yes, I know." She didn't elaborate, thinking it safest to move on. "I know I crave the new. I need new things to see, new things to learn. It's how I keep my sanity. But usually I'm seeking out new things, creatures, phenomena...things that are external to me. This is a whole new set of feelings and perceptions. It's all internal, and it's found me, not the other way 'round. And I've never been very good at that."

"You don't like being your own new thing."

"Precisely. And more." She paused, looking for the right words. "What I shared with John, it was never what one might call a healthy relationship. But it was a relationship. I didn't realize how much it defined a part of me until it was gone. Or how much I'd come to rely on him recently to help me...decompress. I suppose now I'm having a bit of an identity crisis."

Will nodded. "I know exactly why you're thrown by that."

She was surprised at his certain, quick response. "Really?"

"Yes. Because it's a completely normal reaction to have after a long relationship ends. From a breakup, or a death, whatever. The survivor always has to redefine herself, or himself. And you're not just doing it with respect to Druitt." They hadn't spoken Ashley's name, but it dominated Helen's mind and she knew Will was aware of that.

After a long, thoughtful pause, Helen nodded. "I've had loved ones die. Obviously. But nobody this close in a long while. And I suppose I've never really been through a breakup before. Not exactly. So this is what people feel like?"

"Sometimes." He untangled his arm from hers and threw it around her shoulder in a joshing gesture of comfort. "See, you're just one of us after all."

Helen should have encouraged him to remove his arm. But it was getting colder, and she was willing to use the chill in the air as an excuse.

"I'm not sure I can afford to be that," she said, smiling at the antics of the sleek creatures in front of them. One of the younger sea lions was sliding on and off a platform, dipping himself into the water and doing a flip turn so he could launch his streamlined shape back up onto the pilings. Playing. Enjoying the moment. Helen tried to remember the last time she had done that.

"You don't have a choice."

"Oh, well,  _choice_. Tell me I don't have to make a  _decision_  about it and you'll really get my attention," she replied ruefully.

"What if I told you," Will asked, sliding his hand from her shoulder up to the nape of her neck, under cover of her hair, "that you don't  _get_  to make a decision about it? What if somebody else made all the decisions for you for a little while?"

She considered his words very, very carefully, trying to formulate an answer that wouldn't incriminate her further. It was obvious Will had already deduced a thing or two about her, however. She acknowledged to herself, after the fact,  that she had been laying him more than a few clues.

She finally settled on, "You're no longer referring to the rubber ducky and the timer, I take it?"

He chuckled and rubbed her neck, weaving his fingers tightly into her hair. "No, I am not." He gave an experimental squeeze of his impromptu handle, tugging gently. Not hard enough to pull Helen's head back, but hard enough that she knew he could. He could hold it in place and do whatever he liked, for that matter. Intellectually, she knew she could dislodge Will's grip and put him on the ground with one hand and whatever she happened to have in her pocket. If she wanted to. Instead, intellect abandoned her as she felt herself moistening, noted the blood rushing to flood her nipples and genitals at his touch.

"Will..." she whispered.

He did pull her head around then, carefully and just slightly, so he could look her in the eye. She went even weaker at the expression on his face. Lustful, a bit smug. But calm. As though this were nothing new to him. As though he was suddenly treading familiar ground, which surprised her to the extent she was capable of registering any feeling but need.

"You need somebody else to be in control sometimes, don't you, Helen?"

Helen tried to nod, but he had too firm a hold on her hair. "Yes."

"And you hardly ever get to have that. But that's what Druitt did for you." He didn't bother waiting for a confirmation. "So I take it from your response that my educated guess was correct?"

She didn't pretend not to take his meaning; she knew she couldn't have pulled it off with anything like sincerity. "Yes."

"Good. Then I'm going to reward myself."

And without waiting for any sign of permission from Helen, he bent the remaining inch or two toward her and kissed her soundly. She could have gotten away if she'd tried, but she didn't because she had rarely felt so ready to be kissed as she did in that moment. She parted her lips and Will's velvety slick tongue claimed hers, and by the time he pulled away her fingers were gripping so strongly at the lapels of his corduroy blazer that they took a moment to unbend when she let go.

Helen tried desperately to regain some semblance of self-mastery. They couldn't do this, for a hundred very good reasons that all escaped her right now. It was hard to hear herself think over the blood pounding in her ears.

"No," she managed at last, dropping her gaze because she couldn't meet his eyes when she said it.

"No?" He seemed to have expected the protest. He kept his hold on her and waited for her to explain further. Ironically, his touch was comforting to Helen, steadying. She had trouble arguing against it.

"Will...it isn't that I'm not tempted. I am. I think you know I am. But we can't do this, and you know why."

He just looked at her and smiled gently, and suddenly she felt like she was the novice and Will was the one who had lived forever. He put a finger under her chin to lift it gently, forcing her to acknowledge him as he spoke.

"I know what you are, Helen. I know what that means, I've thought through the same implications you have. You're protecting yourself, not just me. And I do understand why." As he spoke, he raised his hand and smoothed a stray tousle of hair back from her cheek. "But still, after all that thinking, and even if it's selfish of me, the conclusion I came to was that it was time to kiss you." And without waiting for her answer, because she couldn't speak right away, he brushed his lips against hers again. Just a fleeting touch, but she couldn't help responding; it was Will, not she, who broke the kiss. "And besides, you don't get to make the decisions right now, remember?"

But he waited again for her to reply before he did anything else. She knew if she protested again in any serious way, he would back off. It would become an awkward, ill-advised moment they'd shared on a trip once, and after enough time had gone by they would even be able to look back on it without blushing. Ten or fifteen years, perhaps. And she knew if she didn't protest, Will would take her back to the hotel and make love to her, and she trusted him to help her lose herself for a brief, blissful time.

Trust won out. Trust, and the longing for all things new.


	7. Chapter 7

Helen might seem demure at times, but she was really far from shy. She was skittish, though, because she’d been badly burned. And because despite all the reading she’d done recently, she couldn’t help but raise a mental eyebrow at the version of herself that lurked beyond the bedroom door. She associated pleasure with pain and possibly fear, to some extent that she couldn’t ever seem to fully program out of herself. She had cloaked this for so long, kept it so deeply hidden from everybody but John, that revealing it to someone new with an eye to exploring it further felt like a sudden nakedness of the soul. 

When they arrived at the hotel room, they didn’t talk. Neither of them was under any illusions; they knew it wasn’t worthwhile to try to define what their future might be. Either they had time, or they didn’t. Anything could happen. Will could be permanently affected by some new abnormal, even be granted long life, at some point in the years to come. Helen could step out into a crosswalk and get flattened by a bus tomorrow. Anything. It was the unknown. Which was exactly what Helen needed. 

Things started in a fairly conventional way, with nervous laughter on Helen’s part muffled by Will’s determined kisses. Then more heated groping and the shedding of clothes. At first the only clothes shed were Helen’s, because Will gently but firmly prevented her from removing his clothes until he’d had the chance to admire her fully and run his hands over all the most interesting bits. 

“Go lie down on the bed,” he said after a few scrumptious minutes, and Helen had to blink and remind herself how to walk. “On your back.”

She complied happily, comfortable enough in her skin not to feel self-conscious now that the dynamic had officially changed. She enjoyed the knowledge that Will was watching her. That he clearly liked what he saw. She was still nervous about the particulars, but it was just one facet of an overall  pleasant anticipation. 

Will stood at the foot of the bed eyeing her as he slowly removed his jacket, his dark blue button-down, and the lighter slate blue t-shirt he’d worn under that. Helen liked what she saw, too. She’d seen him shirtless before, of course, and she’d liked it then, too. His muscles were taut and well-defined, and his jeans fell just low enough on his hips to reveal the top of an intriguing trail of dark hair on his lower abdomen. She was disappointed that he kept the jeans on, less so that when he took off his belt, he tossed it down on the bed near her feet instead of over the chair where he’d thrown his discarded shirts. Promising.

“That headboard just sucks,” Will commented, and Helen turned to look at the smooth expanse of wood. No slats, no rails. Nowhere to fasten anything. 

“Yes it does,” she agreed, shrugging. 

“Well, then I hope you don’t put up too much of a fight,” he said cheerfully, crawling up the bed over her body, dropping a kiss on her stomach before he arrived at her face and kissed her lips hungrily. Helen wrapped her legs around his hips, but he pulled back and shook his head. 

“Put your legs back down,” he instructed. “And keep your hands up here where I can see them.”

“No sudden moves?” she giggled, and Will just shook his head with a smirk.

“No moves at all. Your job is going to be staying perfectly still. Since I can’t tie you down while I play with you.”

She whimpered and her hips flexed up automatically to press closer to the promising friction Will’s jeans provided. For a second he participated, grinding his denim-clad length into her wet heat just hard enough to feel amazing. Then he pushed his body off hers, and Helen could see the sculpted muscles of his jaw as he restrained his impulse. 

“Hands by your head,” he reiterated, “and your legs spread apart for me. I’d say you can be as loud as you want but, you know…hotel.”

“Curses,” she said regretfully. 

“Those are fine by me, as long as they’re quiet.” He bent to suckle at her breast, and Helen moaned as his lazily swirling tongue sent a shiver from her nipple straight down to her clitoris. Almost instantly, it became difficult to stay still. Which she knew was the point. 

Will’s hand was busy at her other breast, and when his grip tightened enough to hurt, Helen drew a sharp breath at the corresponding pang at the bottom of her belly. At the noise, Will’s hand retreated to her side and his head came up, a question on his face. 

Helen laughed bitterly to herself.  _My first lover was Jack the Ripper, little boy_ , she thought.  _Do you really think you have any power to hurt me_? 

But then she looked at him and it was Will, who wasn’t actually as sweet as he seemed, and she had known that about him long before this night. He saw right through her so much of the time, ancient and opaque as she sometimes felt. He knew who she was, and who John was. Because he lived so far under her guard and knew her so well, Will had the power to hurt her in ways John never could have; he simply had no interest in doing so. And he also had the power to heal her, which John never had in his life. Not the life he ended up living, at least. 

She took Will’s hand and laced her fingers through his, drawing them back up to her breast and arching slightly as he started caressing her again. 

“That was not a gasp of pain,” she clarified, holding his gaze as she freed her hand from his and lifted it back up by her ear where he’d placed it earlier. Will tightened his fingers on her breast experimentally, dimpling the soft flesh, and then brought his thumb and forefinger together to pinch at her taut nipple. Watching her as he did so, reading her face as she responded with a hiss and a ragged sigh. 

The next moment was the hard part, but she steeled herself to get through it. To see what Will would do with this part of her she’d just handed him. She watched as though observing the entire scene from above, detached and safe. But it was hard to remain detached when he kept up his maddening torture at her breast, even as he pondered his course of action. And she felt slammed back into her body when he bent his head to her other nipple, bared his teeth and bit down just hard enough to make her yelp. 

He never took his eyes off hers. Soothing the spot with his tongue, then nipping sharply again at the dark pink bud and watching her to see how she reacted. Gauging whether her tension was growing discomfort or growing arousal. 

Will’s own eyes were easier to read, and the erection threatening to tear through his jeans was another clear indicator of how he viewed this latest development. When it became clear to him that manhandling was well within bounds, he proceeded at that level. Holding a little too hard, biting a little too much, sucking and worrying at her skin, until she was covered with marks that would turn into fingertip bruises, and a smattering of love bites in places she’d never had them before. It was perfect. She could get lost in it.

When he marked her inner thigh, just below the hip joint, Helen forgot herself and reached for his hair only to be sternly admonished. 

“You don’t have my permission to do that, Helen. Put your hand back where it was.”

She did, moaning in frustration, but even then she began to feel the first hint of the heavenly state of mindlessness she sought. Pain and pleasure melted together. Her hands felt heavier, harder to lift. Her thighs dropped open a fraction wider as she relaxed, and she let her mind focus on not moving, instead of on the blossoming need between her legs. 

“If I had clothespins and a string here, I’d give you a zipper for that little infraction, I think. Do you know what that is?”

She hardly recognized her own voice, the tiny “no” that was her answer. 

“I’d take some clothespins - I think I’d start with half a dozen - and clip them to your skin. Here, for instance.” He pinched sharply at the spot he’d been nuzzling when she touched him. “And then every inch or so, on down the inside of your leg. Or wherever.” He was pinching along the line as he described it, and Helen breathed out slowly, trying to let her body absorb the new discomfort. He was ramping it up slowly, pushing at the edges of her ability to process the pain as erotic. And it was very, very obvious he knew what he was doing. 

“Then,” Will continued, “I’d take the end of the string. Did I mention there’s a string running through the middle of the clips, so they’re all connected? I’d take the end of that string, and when I was ready I’d yank it off so all the clothespins popped off one by one. Zip.” He moved his nose back where it had been earlier, licking at the spot then letting his tongue wander higher until it brushed against the seam between leg and pudenda. “But first I’d get you so close to an orgasm that you thought you might die if I didn’t let you come. And then I’d make you beg. Which you would eventually, even though you knew as soon as you started to climax I’d pull that string.”

Helen was vaguely aware of a soft whining sound, and knew it must be coming from her. She held still, let herself simply not move, although she shuddered at the first touch of Will’s mouth against her cunt. He traced the edges of each fold with his tongue, flicking at her clit casually whenever he neared it. With the hand that wasn’t torturing her thigh with pinches, he stroked and explored the outer structures of her sex until she felt like her entire being was an aching, empty place waiting to be filled.  When his finger finally slid into her, Helen groaned at the flare of keen pleasure that almost consumed her. Will stopped his hand and the lazy maneuvers of his tongue against her clit. 

“I’ll tell you when you can come, Helen. Until then you’ll wait. Or I’m going to the store for some clothespins.”

That was hardly the way to dissuade her, as he no doubt knew. She panted and willed herself back under some semblance of control as Will started in again, pumping just one finger in and out of her with maddening irregularity, licking and nibbling at her clit until she was aroused to the point of pain. Each little bite was echoed by a sharp pinch on her leg, never the same place twice in a row, so she didn’t know where to expect the next one. It didn’t matter. She was already craving that as much as his mouth, already equating one with the other. Any sensation was good. As long as she got to come. Soon.

“Please?” she finally pleaded, when Will crooked his finger inside her to press up against the sensitive pad of flesh on the front wall of her vagina. “ _God,_ Will.  _Please_?” 

“Please what?” he mumbled against her sodden entrance, a predictable but still agonizing answer. 

“May I come, please?  _Please_?” 

For a moment, she thought he would acquiesce; his pace grew brisker, his thrusts a little more purposeful. But then he stopped again, drawing a growl from her as he withdrew his hand entirely and got up from the bed. 

“Not yet.” 

He was rooting around in his backpack, then seemed to find what he wanted. Helen heard a plastic crinkle, and then Will was back at the bedside, tossing a foil-wrapped condom on the nightstand. 

“Time to get up and get to work. These jeans aren’t gonna take themselves off.”

Helen felt glued to the bed, and she moved too slowly for Will’s liking. Picking up her legs by the ankles, he swung them off the bed to turn her, then grabbed her hands and pulled her up to a sitting position. He pressed her fingers to his waistband before letting go. 

“All-night clothespin store just down the road, I saw it when we drove in.”

Helen just grinned at the ineffective warning. What was it the rabbit said in those politically incorrect stories? Oh, yes—

“Please don’t throw me into that briar patch,” she said, and was rewarded with a startled snicker from Will that turned into an approving growl as she popped open the button of his jeans and started pulling down the zipper. He stroked her hair as she worked, and that tiny gesture almost drove her out of her mind. So simple, so affectionate. So telling. 

She had seen many penises in her life, some more noteworthy than others. Helen decided she liked Will’s very much indeed, that in fact it was probably among the top five penises of her acquaintance. John’s was up there, of course, though she hadn’t realized its superb quality until long after he was gone the first time. James’s happened to be on the list as well, though partly for sentiment. Not Nikola’s, because it was skinny and bent just like he was, no matter how well he used it. There was also, on that list, a French physicist of some renown, whose even better-known Slavic wife had sucked on Helen’s nipples and fondled her to an orgasm as Helen in turn sucked on her husband’s generous erection, one very late Parisian night in the late eighteen-nineties when the research grew tedious and the wine flowed freely. And then there was a young man she’d met in Tangiers and shared a rather wild weekend with, back in the nineteen-sixties when so many of the weekends were wild. His circumference had been noteworthy, his length quite astonishing. She couldn’t recall his name; she wasn’t entirely sure she’d even known it at the time.

And then Will. Whose penis, like his body, was nearly perfect. Circumcised, of course, which was not usually her preference, but beautifully proportioned all the same. Like an illustration, really. A paradigm. She wanted to fondle it, lick it, but when she made as if to do so Will stopped her with the hand that had been playing in her hair. 

“Not so fast. Let’s do this right. For one thing, you should be down on the floor, on your knees.” He pointed to the floor by the bed and Helen slid down obediently to kneel at Will’s feet. She knew he must be getting quite a kick out of that, and didn’t begrudge him. As long as she got to come. Soon. And suck his gorgeous cock, also soon. 

“And hands behind your back, I think. Just your mouth this time. And you need to ask first.”

Her bête noire. She hated it. Wringing her hands behind her, she screwed up her courage and her face and asked, “May I please suck your cock?”

“Oh my fucking God, yes.” 

She giggled at that, and rose on her knees a little to reach for him with her mouth. He helped, holding the base of his erection and putting his free hand back on her head. Petting at first, as she explored and experimented, then pressing none too subtly so she would take him deeper. Helen held back a little, until she could tell by the sounds he was making and the slight trembling in his legs that he was close to breaking. Then she showed him a trick he apparently wasn’t expecting, swallowing him at the base of each stroke so she could take his full length into her mouth. 

Will groaned and fisted both hands in her hair, abandoning restraint and letting his hips thrust, though it was only a few more moments before he gave a soft curse and came in Helen’s mouth in a series of shivering waves. She swallowed greedily, wishing her hands were free so she could touch him. She was just far enough into subspace that she’d as good as forgotten there was nothing actually restraining her hands. 

“Damn,” Will said after his spasms finally eased and he’d pulled Helen’s still-eager mouth away from his cock. “I suck at this. I was so planning to hold off. It’s just been too long, and that felt way, way too good.”

Helen smiled, feeling warm all over at the compliment. She was vaguely aware that Will might use this as an excuse to administer some sort of consequence, and she found she was rather looking forward to whatever it might be. But at the moment he was reaching for her hands, and after a moment she remembered they weren’t tied behind her back by anything but the power of suggestion. She took his hands and stood up, and when Will kissed her she melted against him, savoring the swirl of their combined tastes in her mouth.

Then he scooped her feet out from under her in one swift movement, and she squealed in delight as he lifted her back onto the bed and plopped her down in the middle of it.   Her squeal ended with a squeak and a passionate sigh as Will flopped down between her legs and pushed two fingers into her cunt without hesitating. He watched her face closely as his thumb found her clit and stroked there. Then, to her dismay, he took his hand away again.

“I need some entertainment for the next, oh-” He turned his hips to the side, glanced down at his crotch and pressed his lips together. “Say the next ten minutes. So you’re going to entertain me. Play with yourself, but don’t come. That will happen later.”

It was enough like a promise to give her a little hope. Unfazed by his order in her current state of mind, Helen lowered her hands and started teasing the edges of her cunt, finding and spreading the creamy evidence of her arousal. She chanced a peek at Will, who was leaning on one elbow, his head resting against the inside of her knee. She groaned to see him sucking on the fingers he’d had inside her. 

“Delicious,” he remarked. “Don’t stop.”

Helen moved her hands again, dipping two fingers into her channel and working them slowly in and out. They felt nothing like as good as Will’s had, but his dreamy expression as he watched her was almost as arousing as his touch.

She’d been avoiding her clit deliberately, and after a short time Will apparently caught on. He reached out and dragged one of her hands to the appropriate spot with a pointed look. Helen sighed and circled a fingertip over the fiercely swollen nub. It was too much. She clenched her teeth and tried to focus on her breathing, doing everything she could to keep the looming orgasm at bay. A few strokes had her sweating, her whole body taut with the strain.

Her effort did not go unnoticed. Will pressed a gentle kiss to the inside of her knee and murmured, “I’ve never seen anybody who looked so beautiful when they were suffering.” She laughed, or possibly sobbed, a strangled, miserable sound, and Will kissed her leg again. In her daze, Helen finally noticed he was stroking himself, and he was fully hard again. Taking a longer look, she saw that he also appeared to have put the condom on.  

“ _Please_ ,” she whispered, the direction of her gaze making the subject of her request quite clear. 

Will smiled and worked himself harder for a few strokes, before kneeling between her thighs and moving her hands out of the way. He rubbed his thumbs down her slit, spreading her open, then wet one thumb inside her before bringing it to her clit. Just resting it there lightly, not rubbing or petting. It was excruciating. 

“Don’t move,” he reminded her. “Don’t move, don’t come, until I tell you to.”

A needy whimper was the only reply she could manage, but it seemed to suffice for Will, who kept his teasing thumb in place and used his other hand to bring his erection to her entrance. He gave her only a few inches at first, then pulled almost all the way out, using his hand to keep himself from popping loose. Then in again, just a fraction deeper, and he thrust to that depth a few times. Barely a third of his length was inside her. Helen whined again and thrashed her head back, her entire being focused on not moving her hips. Will teased for what seemed like ages, never going deeper, occasionally stroking his thumb against her clit or pressing in time with his slow, shallow thrusts. 

“God, you’re so ready, aren’t you?” He said softly, gleefully. Helen started crying then, begging shamelessly, and Will finally indulged her. “Come for me, Helen.” 

Even before he thrust his full length into her, even before his thumb did its final wicked dance over her most sensitive bundle of nerves, Helen was coming, wave after wave of searing pleasure only heightened by the avid friction of Will’s cock inside her at last, the pressure of his pelvis grinding against her clit at the depth of each stroke after he’d taken his hand away. She forgot everything else, clung onto Will so hard she drew blood on his back, came until she drew him along with her despite his recent release. He cursed and held her tighter and pounded deeper until he exploded inside her with a final wordless moan.


	8. Chapter 8

Helen could remember coming forever, and then sobbing into Will’s shoulder as she came down. She recalled feeling utterly bereft when he left her briefly a few minutes later, then absurdly and unrepentantly grateful when he returned. She remembered Will coaxing her to sit down in a hot bath, but not how she got to the bathroom. He sat behind her, pulled her back against him, and held her until her tears and trembling eased.

He told her again how beautiful she looked when she cried, and she had regained just enough presence of mind to laugh at that.

“You do,” he insisted. “I mean you’re beautiful the rest of the time, too. Just a different kind of beautiful.”

“That’s very sweet of you, but I think I’m ‘cute’ at best. I’m not beautiful.”

“No,” he said, clearly having thought it through in some detail. “You’re not  _pretty_. But you are beautiful. Stunning. And also cute, it’s true. Very, very cute. Seriously. Way outta my league cute.”

“You’re mad.”

He shrugged, the movement shifting her further down against his chest. “Doesn’t make me wrong. Besides, no I’m not. And I should know. Professional, remember?” He tousled her hair lightly then scooped it to one side so he could kiss her neck; he had to pull her back up out of the water a little to reach it. “Don’t fall asleep on me here, Magnus. I’m way too tired to carry you back to the bed.”

She smiled at his confident, flippant tone. “Mmm. Does intercourse always make you this cheeky?”

“The regular kind? Um, no.”

“I see. Just the irregular kind.”

“Don’t worry, babe,” he reassured her. “It’ll wear off after an hour or so.”

She turned to look at him in mock horror. “I beg your pardon, did you just call me ‘babe’?”

Will grinned and kissed the tip of her nose. “Sorry.”

“Don’t let it happen again.”

“Yes, ma’am. Have I mentioned that I kind of love it when you get all bossy? I know, go figure. Ow!”

She’d singled out a chest hair and tugged it straight out, pulling just slowly enough that Will got the full effect. Helen flicked the tiny, dark curl dismissively off her finger as she turned back to rest against him again.

“I will be seeking vengeance for that later, you know,” he commented, sounding supremely unconcerned.

“I was counting on it,” she admitted.

A few hours later Helen woke like she had fallen asleep, with Will wrapped as tightly around her as the blanket was around both of them. His fingers, wrapped over her arm, were stroking in a gentle, lazy pattern. Not the actions of a sleeping man. A moment later she became acutely aware of the reason he was most likely awake; it was pressing firmly into the small of her back.

“Insomnia, Will?” she whispered, smiling into the darkness.

He chuckled and pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder. “Kind of. Sorry, I really wasn’t trying to wake you up.”

“You didn’t. If you had I wouldn’t have minded, though.” She arched her back, wriggling closer to him, grinning when she felt his erection twitch at the increased pressure.

He didn’t need telling twice. He was already fondling her breast and parting her legs with one of his. Helen felt a telltale warmth, as an embarrassing wealth of creamy eagerness flooded her core. She had never felt so needy, so ready, as she did for Will; she was a little scared at her body’s immediate reaction to his touch. It made her feel too vulnerable, which bothered her. But it also made her unable to resist him, knowing what he could do to her.

Now he pulled her top leg back over his own, letting his stiff cock ride against her slick, swollen cunt. As if to confirm his findings, he ran his hand back up her leg to cup her sex. They both groaned when his fingers encountered the evidence of her need.

Too impatient to tease, he brought his cock to her entrance and entered her in one swift thrust. Then he stopped himself with a curse.

“Fuck. I’m sorry, Helen, I was just so-” He was trying to pull out, but she wound her leg around his, keeping him from escaping.

“It’s all right. It’s fine, it’s safe. Don’t stop. Please, please, don’t stop, Will.”

She cried out as he plunged back into her.

“Oh my God,” he groaned, sliding out just a little before surging deeper still. “You feel so fucking amazing.”

Helen couldn’t respond. At this angle, Will’s cock was rubbing deliciously against her G-spot with every thrust, and her entire body felt like it was blushing. Too easy, he was getting away with everything far too easily, but she couldn’t bring herself to care when she felt like a glove custom-made for him.

When Will started stroking her clit, she shuddered and came apart almost immediately, spasming around his cock. Even after she came down he kept working his fingers against her in time with his thrusts, not letting her rest. A second orgasm started to build despite the throbbing sensitivity that made Helen writhe under Will’s touch. Too late, she realized he had her leg secured with his own, holding her spread and unable to wriggle away. His bottom hand scooped under her waist, and he let off his sweet torture long enough to grab and pin both her wrists against her chest. When he touched her again it hurt nearly as much as it thrilled, but Helen was starting to have trouble distinguishing the two. She tried to thrash out of his arms, but he just laughed. A knowing little laugh.

“Too much, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she panted, still reflexively straining to get her hands free.

“You’ll let me do it anyway,” he said with total self-assurance. “I love how it feels when you come on my cock. I’m going to make you do it as many times as possible. Until I decide I’m done.”

She sobbed, but climaxed again not long afterward, peaking so hard under his firm insistence that she forgot how to breathe for a moment. She never really came down that time, anguished pleasure singing through her veins long after the initial spasms had passed. As Will moved inside her she rocked against him, emitting a series of little gasping cries.

“Oh, good girl, Helen. That felt so good.” But his fingers kept rubbing her clit, and she turned her head and screamed into the pillow when he whispered, “Again.”

She did come again, really just a sharper peak on an already high plateau, and it was too much for Will to stand. He pulled her even closer and took her harder, finally emptying himself inside her with a heartfelt groan and a shiver that lasted nearly as long as Helen’s.

They fell back to sleep without moving again, Will still buried inside her, clasping Helen’s hands tight in his.

 

************

 

He was energetic in the morning. Horribly so, she thought. She woke up because he had leapt on the bed and crawled over her on all fours, nuzzling the sheets over her stomach. When she gave a sleepy groan he raised his head up with the edge of the sheet between his teeth. He looked like a very large, very playful puppy. Helen wondered how soon it might be possible to obtain a cup of tea.

Will dropped the sheet and grinned, and Helen noticed for the first time that he was already dressed.

“You’re awake! Great! I ordered breakfast.”

Then, seeming to notice for the first time that his antics with the bed linen had left her breasts bared, Will resumed his nuzzling a bit higher up.

“You’ve already showered and everything,” Helen said, feeling grumpy as she ran her fingers through his damp hair. No hair care products in it yet, she noted with pleasure. It looked just the same to her as it always did, but felt much more pleasant.

“Yep. I woke up at six and went down to the gym.”

“You’re not serious. What time is it now?”

“Eight. Plane leaves at two. No charter flight to deal with. So we have plenty of time for a long breakfast. And then a nice, long hot shower for you, and still some free time left over for lunch and whatever. If you still want to play tourist, we can go to Ghirardelli Square and eat chocolate for dessert. And buy some to bring back for everyone, I guess.”

She shrugged, feeling disinclined to argue when his mouth and fingers were doing such sneaky, clever things to her nipples. “That seems more decadent than the usual business trip. Are you sure we can’t arrange an earlier flight?”

“Nope.” He shifted from one side to the other, deploying his tongue to great effect. “I already checked. Besides, this is all therapeutic. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

Hard to believe, when at the moment he looked all of sixteen. His eyes were nearly closed as he kissed his way along her chest, and she wondered why she’d never before noticed that his eyelashes were so insanely thick. Probably because she’d been too distracted by how blue his eyes were. Or by his sculpted cheekbones. Or by the way his forehead wrinkled so adorably, as it was doing now because he was looking at her curiously.

“What?” She wondered if she had raccoon eyes, or her hair were lumped all on one side, or any of the other indignities morning often pushed on a woman.

A muffled knocking distracted him from answering.

“Hang on,” he said, jumping off the bed as easily as he’d jumped on and striding through the connecting door to his own room. She could just hear the murmur of voices as the room service waiter took lids off plates and so forth.

“ _Bon appetit_ , sir.” The waiter’s voice held more than a touch of wry amusement.

“Oh, it’s not all for me.”

Somebody mumbled something, then, she couldn’t tell which voice it was. The next thing she made out was obviously the exchange of a tip, and then the door closed and Will backed into view again pulling the laden cart along with him.

“That was thoughtful of you.”

“What, breakfast?”

“Having it delivered to your room instead of mine. Very discreet.”

“Nah, that was just the phone I was closest to when I got hungry,” he said with a shrug. She didn’t believe him, and she valued his discretion even above his modesty.

“Thank you anyway. It would have been all right, you know. Having it delivered to this room. I wouldn’t have minded.”

He sat down on the bed and pulled his feet up to sit cross-legged by her legs, in front of the cart. “What about back home?”

“Bacon and toast, please. And if there are strawberries in the fruit, I’ll have some of that as well. Is the tea already steeping?” After checking on the progress of her beverage, Helen settled back and watched Will dishing food onto a plate for her. “Back home is troublesome for a number of reasons. If this is to continue-”

“Oh, it’s gonna continue.”

“ _If_  this is continue,” she went on firmly, “I need to know that this begins and ends at the bedroom door, Will. The metaphorical bedroom door, of course. Oh, you know what I mean.”

He munched on a piece of bacon reflectively. “Well, I think I do. So nobody can know?” He wasn’t judging, just asking for clarification, and Helen appreciated his willingness to oblige her.

“No, people can know. They’ll find out anyway, it won’t do us any good to try to hide it. In fact it’s been my experience that hiding this sort of thing is almost always detrimental in the long run.”

“Then what-”

“ _This_ , Will. This dynamic. The…the nature of…” She eyed a strawberry and speared it fiercely with her fork, looking annoyed.

“The D/s thing? Well, that’s nobody’s business anyway. And yeah, no, I’m not interested in being a full-time Dominant. Far, far from it. Wait, so…you really don’t mind if people know?”

“They’ll know anyway. The Big Guy will know as soon as we walk through the door. So will Henry, probably. They’ll both smell it.”

Will winced as the truth and several implications of that hit home. “Man.”

“There will be no hiding it, Will. They’ll know whenever we’ve been together, whenever we haven’t been together but would like to be, and probably whether we’ve quarreled. None of us really have any secrets from those two where pheremones are concerned. And I think Kate will just figure it out.” She spied a whole strawberry garnishing one of the breakfast plates and snatched it greedily.

“So they probably already know that…um, if either of us had anything in mind before this. They knew that. Probably.”

“We both know the Big Guy did. Henry, probably not consciously. But if either of them had strong objections,” she pointed out, “you wouldn’t be sitting there right now, ogling me while I eat strawberries in the nude.”

“I wish I’d ordered a lot more strawberries,” he admitted. “I could sit here all day.”

She laughed and brushed a tiny bit of the fruit’s rosy flesh from her lip, catching it with her tongue. Then she ate the rest of the large berry in a manner that left Will’s mouth hanging slack and his eyes glassy.

“Wonderful,” she purred. “Would you pour me some tea, please?”

“Huh? Oh. Tea. Right. That’s the stuff in the pot.”

“It’s over there, Will.” She pointed, as he was looking nowhere near the teapot.

“Sorry. Jesus.” He shook his head to clear it and poured a cup of tea, passing it to Helen who took it with a smug smile.

“Thank you. Will, may I ask you something?”

“Anything,” he said.

“You should always think before you say that, you know. Anyway…it seems apparent to me that you’ve done this sort of thing before. I’m still trying to figure out how I could have missed it when I was profiling you. But I was curious how you came to be familiar with it.”

Will shrugged and continued eating as he spoke. “I actually started out on the other side of the equation. And I was never into the club scene, really, so that’s probably why it wasn’t obvious. I mean a significant other is just a significant other, right? Even a thorough profile only goes so far. If I’m not going to BDSM hangouts, and none of my partners are either, why would it even come up? You’d have had no reason to suspect that.”

“The other side of the equation?”

“I was a submissive. I thought I was, at least. I guess I was at the time and then I had a paradigm shift.”

She looked at him, astonished not just by his revelation but by how calmly and openly he was talking about it. “So you mean you actually…you let women, um-”

“And a couple of men,” he volunteered happily.

“Good heavens.”

“It was college, I was experimenting. ”

“I…um.”

“Magnus, you’re speechless. I’m amazed. Yes, I was on the receiving end at first. I liked it, liked all that attention. Still do, occasionally. I like that place where you don’t have to think. Can’t think. Just wait for whatever’s next. You know.”

“Yes, I do know.” she said softly, frowning slightly.

Will reached behind him and squeezed her foot through the heavy blanket. “It’s a great place when you need to be there. I just found out I didn’t need to be there all that much. I was doing a clinical practicum at the time. And one day I realized that as a sub I was just like a patient, and the Dominant was like the doctor, except Doms get to do something that psychiatrists never get to do. Take some person who’s got all these issues, bring it all out in the open, and make them sweat it out in the most blatant way imaginable. Maybe not the literal monsters like mine was, but just about all the other stuff. All their deepest, darkest crap they’re carrying around. And then he gets to make them do whatever he says to get rid of all that for a little while. That release, it isn’t just physical, or emotional, it can be spiritual. Absolution. It’s like magic. And there’s a sense of closure.”

“That actually makes a certain amount of sense,” she said, not sure why she should be so surprised. Of course Will had thought his way into this, of course he knew exactly why it appealed to him. It wouldn’t have been in his nature to do otherwise. “But what about later? You didn’t go into that sort of practice. You weren’t doing therapy. So you weren’t having those same frustrations with your…clients.”

“True,” he said, clearly not regretting that career choice. “But for one thing, once you start doing this, you can’t go back to vanilla. You, um, know what I mean by-”

“Yes, yes.”

“And for another thing, forensics can be frustrating too. Dead bodies don’t take to therapy very well, and they aren’t really the clients anyway. Plus closure for them happens before you ever get there.”

She nibbled on her last piece of bacon, leaning forward to put her plate back on the cart. Will took unabashed advantage of the extended view while it lasted, she could hardly help but notice.

“So,” she sighed, “I suppose your job now is the ideal middle ground. You get to use all your deductive skills, help some live patients once in awhile, and still have closure.”

“You knew when you hired me that it was the ideal job for me. You knew everything about me.”

“Not this,” she reminded him. It troubled her, that she hadn’t known.

“Everything that might relate to the job. I thought we’d established that I’m not working right now.”

“No, you’re not. If this was work, you’d be back on the other side of the equation. Oh, God. That was part of the attraction, wasn’t it? Why you took the job in the first place?” She thought of the way Will looked at her, and the magnification of that look when she wore a lot of black leather and boots, and she put her face in her hands. She knew only too well that most men assumed she was as controlling in the bedroom as she was in the rest of her life. And many of them, throughout the years, had been overtly disappointed to find she was not inclined that way.

“Magnus,” Will sang softly. “Maaagnuuuus…come back.”

She peeked between her fingers to find him smiling at her, as cheeky as ever. Closing her fingers again and shaking her head, she wondered how on earth she had come to be where she was at this particular moment. 

“Helen,” he tried again, using the stronger tone she’d heard from him last night. “Put your hands down and look at me. ”

She did, though she wasn’t happy about it. But they were still in a bedroom. She was still naked. And she might look like a Dominatrix when she wore a lot of black leather, but in her personal life she was something quite different.

“Thank you,” Will said, acknowledging her compliance but still using what she was starting to think of as his Dom voice. “Don’t do that again. Don’t hide your reactions from me.” He closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, then resumed in something closer to his normal tone. “If it helps, I never made the mistake of assuming you were a top, just because you’re powerful. I had you pegged from the start as a sub, or at least as somebody I could see as needing to be in that role sometimes. And  _that_  was certainly part of the attraction. At the time I never dreamed it would become quite this relevant. But I noticed.”

“Thank you. That does help.” She wasn’t sure why, but it did. Knowing that somebody saw her as soft, vulnerable. Giving. Knowing that somebody thought of her as having needs.

“It begins and ends at the bedroom door. We don’t need a lot of dissension or confusion in the ranks about the chain of command. I’m no instigator. You’re still our glorious leader, Magnus.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

“Any time. But now I think it’s time for the glorious leader to get her glorious ass into the shower. We have a lot of chocolate to buy before we head home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Around the time I was trying to finish up this fic, I'd just contracted my first series of novels with a publisher and was frantically working on edits for two different books. Things never did calm down on that front, and eventually the show finished up, and everybody moved on. I lost the draft for that final chapter about two computers ago, sadly. So the odds of my ever finishing this are pretty slim. But I hope you enjoyed what was there! And please feel free to check out my other fics, as the rest of them are pretty much all complete! 
> 
> (The only one that even ends ambiguously is a BSG fic called "Distraction" that I had to cut off prematurely because it was getting too AU).


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